Basically, it is absurd: butter, caramel, salt, vanilla. The epitome of all gourmand ideas - sweet, sugary, greasy, hot. A Häagen-Dasz ice cream stew comes to mind, with such seductive names as "Macadamia Nut Brittle", "Vanilla Caramel Brownie" or "Salted Caramel Cheesecake", eaten by Bridget Jones in red and white checked pyjamas, "All by myself" smashing into an imaginary microphone.
But - Italy? Italy??? Really? Bella Italia?
The Italian as such does not have breakfast, as everyone knows. If anything, he eats a cookie. I bambini also two. That's why such dust-dry brands as "Il mulino bianco" have been able to establish such a dominant position in the market at all - because it's the size of the biscuits that counts, more than the taste. The cookies from the white mill are not big. Because the Italian doesn't eat breakfast. And so the non-existent Italian breakfast has no meaning in the European context of gourmets.
But no one who has ever been to an Italian city on a summer morning at six o'clock will ever be able to forget the scent of the freshly opened bars in the morning air, while the sidewalk is being swept by the cameriere, before these beautiful, fragrant bearers of precious Florentine scarves come in for a moment: Coffee. Caffè ristretto. Caffè americano. Caffelatte. Cappuccino. Caffè again. And, yes - the indispensable latte macchiato. This strong, spicy, inimitably delicious scent that comes from the incredibly expensive, one and a half metre wide sieve support machines. The fragrance that, from that moment on, will forever be the measure and benchmark for every other coffee you will ever drink.
A cappuccino e basta in the morning. Simplicity. Discretion. Elegance. This never had anything to do with the low fat chocolate salted caramel macchiato we are thrown with in this country. All the more incomprehensible how an Italian perfume can evoke associations of such sweet gluttony in its own language. Maybe no hot-foaming coffee drink at all - I agree with Sweetsmell75, that was exactly my first thought - is meant? Maybe Zeromolecole thinks of something pure, natural with a light sweetness? Freshly milked cow's milk directly from the South Tyrolean organic farm? Or even breast milk?
The scent is sweet but delicate. I can smell out all the components named in the pyramid one by one, but I'm not sure if these are all components. The heavy, broad, creamy mass in which the fragrance is embedded - also visually perceptible as a light oil film on the skin - must be butter. A sweet, delicious caramel note spreads out inside, with only a tiny hint of salt, hardly noticeable but responsible for the spicy depth of this note. Finally, the fragrance is rounded off by the mild, light vanilla, which I by no means perceive as synthetic. It is also rather reserved in my specimen, a balanced cooperation with the other fragrances, not dominant, not reminiscent of vanilla pulp, more of vanilla sugar. No spice is hidden in this fragrance, nothing refined, which is why salt is so important in giving it the necessary depth, without which it would be one-dimensional and possibly unattractive. In contrast to other gourmands of this genre - such as Salt Caramel or Lait de Biscuit - "Biancolatte" has nothing of the established popcorn burnt almond scent of these perfumes. It completely lacks the note of the burnt, baked, so that the impression that this is rather a sweet, milky drink is even intensified.
An extremely shocking, world-famous poem by Paul Celan deals with the Holocaust and, as many know, begins with the uncomfortable, unwieldy metaphor "black milk of the early morning". These lines, too, immediately come to mind when one reads "Biancolatte", because it is precisely this lyrical opposition of "black" and "milk" that is so deliberately negated in "Biancolatte". The name of the fragrance plays with the definition of milk, which has a harmonising effect: White. Soft. Velvety. In. Innocent. A drink for children. Sweet milk for little sweet beaks. I think you have to be completely open to this scent message if you want to test "Biancolatte". One should not approach fragrance with the standards of an adult, not expect an adult fragrance that can respond to adult sensitivities. But be very clear about this: "Biancolatte" is not a fragrance for children in terms of price. But it is a fragrance for those completely childlike, soft, tender moments in life. Moments without intellectual conversations, without subtle thoughts. Without stress, without time pressure, without important appointments. A fragrance only for those few precious moments when you become a child again and sip a hot, sweet milk with pleasure. In his bathrobe on the sofa, just before going to bed. Which makes the thought of Bridget Jones kind of take over.
