Batucada – softly sexy and quietly refreshing

^{Photo - Wikipedia - Caipirinha cocktail with sugar cane swizzle stick}

^{Dave Catania, December 2006}

Today I bought Batucada. I sniffed it when it first came out and made a note that it was full bottle worthy, but it wasn’t until the weather turned a bit cooler that it floated to the top of the must-have pile.

Huh? Colder weather? Isn’t that code for incense/spice scents? Sure it is and make no mistake I have been reaching for lots of those lately, but I find routine confining and it doesn’t take me long to want to go against the grain a bit, which is why I’m wearing Batucada in December.

Batucada in from L'Artisan Parfumeur and their website describes Batucada  “Refreshing as a cocktail, sexy as a Brazilian dance.” Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started.

Batucada opens fresh and green from citrusy lime and herbaceous mint leaves, but there also a note of rich fruitiness from davana and a lovely tropical note from coconut. The opening is light and refined, not heavy or sharp. It leads straight to a sumptuous floral heart of rich tiare flower and fragrant ylang ylang that highlight cachaça, a sugar cane rum. This is a nod to the caipirinha, the national cocktail of Brazil . I’ve never had a caipirinha, but if it tastes as good as this juice smells, well, I’m gonna be having a few of these over the holidays.

At the drydown sweet amber appears, and echoes the sweetness of the cachaça, while sandalwood, musk, vetiver work together to give it a woody, animalic depth. And, vanilla bourbon adds gorgeous rich note. But there is more - the smell of the sea, just a soft aquatic note to round it all out.

To me this frag doesn’t smell of a place or a drink or a dance so much as it smells like I am in that place – sitting at a bar on the beach, I smell the tropical flowers, the ocean, the caipirinha in my hand, my warm sun-kissed skin that smells of the suntan lotion I put on hours ago. It’s a well-crafted, very nuanced scent that it doesn’t smell boozy, too sweet or too sweaty, just softly sexy and quietly refreshing. And, believe me, softly sexy and quietly refreshing can be worn anytime.

OMG! My hips are starting to sway…..!

Check out Batucada in our Shop.