Santa Maria Novella launched Angels of Florence last year to honor the 40th anniversary of the 1966 flood that destroyed numerous cultural works in Florence, including close to a million books in the Biblioteca Nazionale. The fragrance benefits the Angels of Florence, a non-profit organization working to restore those items. You can read more about their “Adopt-A-Book” program here….
More online shopping ideas. See also Holiday fragrance gifts 2006 part 1, part 2 and part 3.
At loccitane, the Ruban d’Orange Complete Regimen, with Eau de Toilette, Shower Gel, Body Milk and Lip Gloss. $71.50 (on markdown)…
Don’t let the retro packaging fool you: Eva is one of the newer fragrance releases from Santa Maria Novella. It came out in 2002, and has notes of citrus fruits, Italian bergamot, black pepper and vetiver.
There is nothing much to Eva; it is a simple unisex rendition of a traditional citrus-based cologne water, but very nicely done. It starts with crisp, dry citrus, and quickly takes on a nicely dusty pepper note, mingled, I would guess, with some other spice notes that I can’t identify. It settles into pale dry woods underscored with earthy (but not overly so) vetiver.
That is the whole story, but it is probably just the right amount of a story for a hot summer day…
Melograno (Pomegranate) was launched by Santa Maria Novella in 1965, and has become one of the brand’s most popular fragrances.
Melograno was a puzzle to me for some time as the aroma bears little resemblance to the juicy red fruit it is named for. Instead, Melograno is an aldehydic, powdery musk aroma that invites comparison to scents like Chanel no. 22 and Santa Maria Novella’s own Muschio Oro. An uncomplicated fragrance, Melograno’s unisex composition remains a mystery. Opening with a sharp blast of aldehyde, moving to a middle-note that smells like a combination of gold musk and pencil-eraser (yes, pencil-eraser), and drying down with a hint of leather, Melograno is easily one of the most distinctive colognes I’ve experienced. Having been compared by fellow reviewers to everything from vintage shaving products to hairspray, this is definitely a scent that needs to be experienced to be understood…
Città di Kyoto is the most recent of Santa Maria Novella’s fragrances. It was released in 2005 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the sister-city link between Florence and Kyoto. The notes include iris for Florence and lotus for Kyoto; other notes include bergamot, orange, jasmine, hyacinth, rose, hawthorn, ylang-ylang, plum, peach, cinnamon, cypress, lavender, birch, sandalwood, gaiac wood, cedar, ebony, patchouli, ambergris and vanilla.
The citrus in the opening of Città di Kyoto is very soft and mild, and layered over prominent notes of hawthorn and iris…