Natural perfumery that’s not boring. I’ve been wearing these two by Maria Candida Gentile for the past couple of weeks.
I have Cinabre and Barry Lyndon.
Barry Lyndon is an aromatic scent that feature artemisia, the same herb that gives absinthe its distinctive flavor. This is an aromatic herbal perfume that smells especially refreshing on a hot day. Is the artemisia like licorice? A tiny bit but mostly it’s smoother, more refreshing, like being outside, a breath of fresh air.
Official notes: Artemisia, Arnica, Heather, Leather notes, Haiti vetiver, Madagascar vanilla
Cinabre is more me, it’s all zingy spiciness and resins coating an ancient rose. I can’t get enough of it.
Zingy spiced roses stirred into liquid resins. Melts on contact at body temperature. Must be the heat, the humidity that makes them feel like they’ve always been a part of you. Honestly, this is a rose perfume that’s not very rosy.
Official notes
Top notes: Ginger, black Indian pepper
Heart notes: Splendens rose, Moroccan rose, Davanà
Base notes: Benzoin, Vanilla from Madagascar, Opoponax
The perfumer reached out after I posted this little caption on Instagram to say that this is her interpretation of a medieval alchemist’s rose, so it’s not supposed to smell too rosy.. which it doesn’t. It’s quite unusual because of the ginger note, but honestly I find that note to be so addictive.
I’m also finding that this perfume has hardly any sillage or projection. It just kind of sits on the skin all the time and doesn’t go very far. I think that’s ok, but I was spraying many many sprays in order to be able to get it to travel up to my nose, (we are talking at least 5-8 sprays here), and I noticed that it seemed to be missing many of the modern aromachemicals that perfumes have. These always seem to bolster the other notes, and this perfume was lacking that cushion. Again, I reached out to the perfumer, and it turns out that these are “natural perfumes” and she doesn’t use ingredients like iso-e or ambroxan, even in minute quantities, and so yeah, the scent isn’t going to travel far.
That being said, it’s still a beautiful perfume and easy to wear, and I find the opening of it so addictive. I really craved this scent and basically wore it every other day for 3 weeks straight so that was good, and I’m almost done my little 15ml of it which never happens. I’ve also come to think that 15ml just isn’t very much perfume, and I’d like no less than 20ml of a scent if I’m going to be getting a small bottle, and I can see why so many new perfumeries are doing a 30ml size. That does make more sense to me.
I’m really interested in trying more perfumes from this line. I have a sample of Yasmeenah, a tuberose scent that I’ll have to wear more to get a sense of, and Barry Lyndon which feels a bit masculine for me. Elephant and Roses is a one I’d really like to try next.
Maria Candida is also known for her use of incense. I didn’t get any of the perfumes that had incense since I only wanted these little travel sizes and these are the ones that Indie Scents had in stock at the time, but I’ll be looking for those the next time. This is a brand out of Italy, so the perfumes might be easier to sample and smell if you’re outside Canada.
Here’s the video review of Cinabre.
