Romanza – green and indolic and a heart-stealer

Photo: perfumenich

Narcissus is a favourite flower in our household. We enjoy them in the spring – the excitement of discovering them in the garden and watching them grow – and we miss them when they’re gone. That’s when I seek them out in perfume to keep the joy of spring alive for us all year round.

So when I read that Italian niche line Masque Milano Fragranze launched a fragrance based on narcissus called Romanza I wanted to try it.

Allesandro Brun and Riccardo Tedeschi launched Masque Milano Fragranze in 2013. The concept behind the line is that each fragrance represents a different act and scene in the 'Opera of Life,' as Brun and Tedeschi conceived it.

Romanza was inspired by the Victorian dandies in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. Launched in 2015, it is Act III Scene ll of the opera: “Daylight is breaking in. What time is it? The Green Fairy inspired throughout your nightlong endeavours and now you’re done. Your beautiful subject is still there facing you. …such a beautiful poser… So well dressed, so carefully groomed, so irresistibly debonair, …beautiful and intoxicating… as intoxicating as the indolic smell of the flowers in full bloom, coming from the garden. So weird – only yesterday you were just friends. Bees hopping from one flower to another, perpetuating the amazing circle of life. Butterflies in your stomach. What is going on? What is this vertigo? Overwhelming attraction, stirring you up. Still you are not in love – yet”

On me it opens with the smell of sweet, fresh, fleshy orange blossom shot through with the bracing herbaceous, bitter smell of gin-nuanced absinthe –  The Green Fairy. The contrast between the bright orange blossom and dark green absinthe is mesmerizing. The woody, spicy aspects of the absinthe link to those aspects of angelica, bringing forward its warm sensuality. And then, the heart bursts open with the smell of sweet, heady narcissus, bolstered by indolic jasmine, which together creates a dramatic, narcotic blend like no other I have ever smelled. It’s potent and powerful and pulls me deeper and deeper into it, swirling around my brain and igniting all the pleasure points. Romanza smells the way yielding feels.

Narcissus has a green aspect that violet leaves extend with their metallic, green facets, slowing down the fall and pacing the development so the pleasure lasts longer until the base of vetiver, cedarwood, and patchouli make it drier and darker. Amber adds a sweet warmth while civet makes it animalic, and myrrh gives it that dark, resinous bitterness I love. It mingles with some lingering sweetness from the heart and the amber to create a bittersweetness at the end that gives me pause every time I catch a gorgeous whiff of it.

If Romanza were an act and a scene in an opera, it would be a scene-stealer. As a fragrance, it’s a heart-stealer with no regard for gender.

Check out Romanza in our Shop.