Today I'm wearing Mona di Orio Carnation. I must admit, so far, I am a fan. I haven't tried the third fragrance, Lux, but I have tried Nuit Noire. (Note to self: order Lux sample now.)The notes in Carnation are as follows:
Top: Bergamot, clove, carnation
Heart: Ylang ylang, violet, jasmine, precious woods
Base: Musk, amber, styrax
The opening and the end are the best of this scent, I think. The bergamot comes through right at the top, but to be honest I don't detect much of the clove. Is the carnation the slight dark powder? Jasmine rushes right in and hangs around for a while, but the fragrance gets very dark and powdery to me. And now I'm going to cheat a bit, because I read Colombina's review on Perfume-Smellin' Things, and she mentioned that to her, this scent smells like powder blush. Ah! Exactly what I was looking for, but I'll take it one step further--it smells to me like a dressing room, not the department store kind, but the sit-in-a-silk-robe-and-put-on-your-face kind, the kind with silver trays and beautiful bottles and perfect lighting...only it smells like this dressing room a few hours after the occupant has left it. And like something in the air, it eventually fades to the soft musky amber, and that's that.
My first sample to write about on this blog was Nuit Noire. (Sorry I can't link back...need to change a few things! But if you click the May link to the right and scroll up from the bottom of the page, you'll see it.) I loved it! After writing about my impressions of that scent, I looked around on the other perfume blogs to see all the other wonderful things everyone surely must have said, and much to my surprise found that many people did not like it at all!
I was somewhat daunted. Truly, I was nervous about recording what I thought in a blog at all, given that so many wonderful perfume blogs already exist. And here I was, my first time out, gushing my fool heart out only to find that some people whose blogs I had been stalking for months just thought it was anything from meh to completely yucky. And the comments on these reviews! Nuit Noire haters, all of them! I cringed. I slouched down low in my desk chair. (Luckily, I finally discovered Colombina's review of Nuit Noire, and found I wasn't alone!)
But I've perservered, and it's funny that after looking back at my impressions of Nuit Noire, I realize that both of these scents make me think of places recently occupied by someone fabulous, but now empty, and all that lingers is the scent. What lovely scents they are, though!
*photo from Aedes
