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🍹 Mood Scent 4 Al Fresco Fragrances – Perfumes For Outside Dining 🍹

Mood Scent 4 Al Fresco Fragrances – Perfumes For Outside Dining.

It’s is time for our monthly Mood Scent 4 post. Where Portia (on A Bottled Rose), Samantha  (I Scent You A Day), Megan (Megan In Sainte Maxime) and I write about a different fragrance subject. This time we concentrate on Al Fresco fragrances. Those perfumes we wear at garden parties, picknicks, outside dining, roof top or beach parties for those of us who live in a part of the world where these festivities are possible due to weather or the COVID circumstances.

In Amsterdam, The Netherlands we are entering autumn at the moment, luckily without too many restrictions and having some beautiful golden late summer days to enjoy. I have chosen some light fragrances and a body oil which stay close to the skin to avoid others smelling these unless they enter your 1,5/1 or 2 m zone as I can imagine smelling perfume while eating can be annoying to others.

Acqua di Parma/Blu Mediterraneo Fico di Amalfi Acqua Profumata

I would not call Fico di Amalfi very well named as it is a more a beautiful a citrus light floral bouquet than a fig centric fragrance, fico meaning fig in Italian. But it smells refreshing and of light ethereal flowers, there is a slight fig touch from the green fresh large fig leaves too. Fico di Amalfi is blue and transparent, as the radiant Mediterranean Sea bathing in the golden sun. It reminded me of refreshing cold misting water spritzes in the centre of Lissabon on a warm summer day. They had machines under white parasols spraying misting water every few seconds which felt very freshening on a very warm day. Not sure if they still have these as I visited years ago.

Fico di Amalfi smells like flower fairies having a Summertime bath in the turquoise Mediterranean Sea at the Italian coast, playful and light.

Francesca Bianchi Lost in Heaven Sublime Oil

Lost in Heaven feels like slipping on a dusty pink velvet cat suit which feels like a second skin. It stays very close to the skin and is quickly absorbed which is an added bonus. It glides on the skin with a sweet velvet peach, to continue to smelll more buttery and powdery like orris/iris root. There is a light suede leather touch too. The sublime oil is not as animalic on my skin as the perfume and lightly reminiscent of a my ginger cat Rubio’s fur.

If Guerlain Mitsouko had a long lost modern and distant great granddaughter it could be Lost in Heaven.

Lubin Gin Fizz Eau de Toilette

Gin Fizz was originally created in 1955 as a tribute to Grace Kelly and inspired by the cocktail with lemon juice, sugar, sparkling water and gin. It smells effervescent and bubbly with refreshing light lemon, a touch of orange blossom, fizzy soap like notes, leaving a clean white musk trace on the skin.

It feels like wearing an elegant white tuxedo like the smokings Bianca Jagger wore in the 1970ies, Gin Fizz is very suited for al fresco dining as it wears close to the skin. It’s a bit shy for my taste but a great fragrance for this time of year and for al fresco dining. 

These are the three al fresco fragrances I picked.  Have a look on Samantha’s blog I Scent You A Day Megan’s blog  Megan in St. Maxime  and Portia on A Bottled Rose! I

What are your favourite outside dining fragrances? What do you think of my picks?

Disclosure: All fragrances mentioned in this article were paid by me. Bottles which are sold now, could be different from the ones on the photograph. All the photographs were made by me as well and are an artistic expression.

Hilde Soliani Luce A brand new day !

takingflightSome months ago I tested many Hilde Soliani fragrances. I really loved scenting these perfumes as they are so different from other fragrances I have tried before. Hilde Soliani is an Italian perfumer with a passion for teatre and Italian haute cuisine. The Hilde Soliani Facebook page shows her many times near a master chef and helping him with his cooking. Hilde Soliani has 4 different perfume lines.  Profumo e gusto in liberta was inspired by haute cuisine dishes. Teatro Olfattivo di Parma was inspired by local theatre in Parma.  Ti amo was inspired by flowers and Gli Invisibili was inspired by emotional events in her personal life. Some bottles might seem a bit odd. At first I was put off a bit by the bottles of the Gli Invisibili line with a crucifix on them.

What struck me most about Hildes fragrances was the joy they brought me and probably the pleasure of Hilde making her fragrances. They are different from anything I have tried before, very original and fresh. Their structure does not seem very complicated. They do not change a lot on my skin as other perfumes might do. But their simplicity might be deceiving. They are really well made. Hilde is very original in her combination of scents like strawberry and salt in Fraaagola Saalaaata and custard cream with cherries flavoured leaves of tobacco in Doolciiisssimo.

One of the fragrances I enjoyed most was Luce of the Profumo e Gusto in Liberta line. Luce means light in Italian and was inspired by the birth of a child of a friend of Hilde, a new born child bringing light to the earth and joy to the ones around him/her. Personally I would find it more logical if Luce would have been in the Gli Invisibli line, a liquid emotion and not in the haute cuisine line.

birth2010Luce is all about powder, baby powder. Somehow it reminded me of the almond coated sweets given to visitors when a child is born in Spain and maybe other countries too. It would be very suited to scent a birth announcement card with Luce. Hilde Soliani keeps her notes/ingredients secret like a master chef who does not convey his recipes. The emotion Luce brought me was of pure joy, the same pleasure I experience while watching the scene brand A brand new day (everybody rejoice) in the movie The Wiz (1978).  But at the same time Luce is very relaxing and comforting.  A very interesting combination, bringing delight and cosiness at the same time.

Luce is sold in a 100 ml bottle. I really wish Hilde Soliani would introduce a discovery set of her fragrances or smaller 30 ml bottles as Parfums de Nicolai does. Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer recently introduced an explorer set and the French perfume brand Jul et Mad small 5 ml bottles.

Give Luce a try if you like other (very different takes on powder) perfumes like:

Lorenzo Villoresi Teint de Neige

Laura Tonatto Dama

Parfums de Nicolai Kiss me Tender

Guerlain L’Heure Bleue (according to Patricia de Nicolaï, perfumer and the president of the

Osmothèque perfume conservatory, the universal symbol of the word powdery in perfumes)

 

A sample of Luce was provided for pr purposes. This did not influence my review.

Paintings Taking flight 2011 and Birth 2010 are both made by Henriette Hackenberg.

 

Originally published November 4, 2013

 

update march 12th 2014 : Hilde Soliani informed Luce is from the Momenti line

 

A brand new day / Everybody Rejoice The Wiz