Where I talk about perfumeries and put in a little give-away. π
Even though Paris might sound like the city for a perfumista, Rome definitely has perfume merits of its own. Personally, I am generally not one for Italian perfumery but among all the available choices, even I found an Italian perfume to like. More on that later.
Our perfume wanderings started with the AlΓ© parfum perfumery which we discovered by accident as it was just down the road from where we were staying.
It’s a small shop full of wonders. π I find it incredible how many different perfume brands were there. The perfumes that stand the most in my memory are Iris Nazarena I finally was able to try and the new Jovoy perfumes which I would need to smell better at leisure. I did like Iris Nazarena just not that much to warrant the price tag.
The next shop on our perfumista quest was HB Profumeria. It is a rather large shop with many cosmetic and perfume brands and here is where we spent the bulk of our perfume money. π
Of all the Italian perfumes I smelled there, I decided to take home Electra by Sigilli which is a really strange perfume with metallic/ozonic vibes and radioactive longevity. It really requires you to spray it sparingly. π It’s labeled as an amber which it is but only after being so much more.
One of the main reasons to visit this perfumery became obvious after Asali’s talk with the SA after she spied an old version of L’Heure Bleu. π It seems the owner of HB Profumeria goes out of his way to procure the old Guerlains. So, who knows, if you’re lucky in Rome you might come across one for you.
The last perfumery we visited has several stores in Rome and after visiting the first, smaller one, we were told to go and visit their main store where they have more lines and which they use for perfume events (F. Kurkdjian’s event was this past week which unfortunately we missed).
If you’re going to visit just one Campomarzio 70 store, my advice is to go to the flagship store at Via Vittoria 52 and hope the beautiful blonde, blue-eyed SA is there. Unfortunately, I don’t know her name and didn’t think to ask at that point but it is very rarely you come across such a great SA. After learning a bit about our general taste in perfume, she proceeded to offer perfumes to try that would fit with what we had said. And she was guessing unbelievably well. As luck would have it, they ship all over Europe so if I decide I need a bottle of Isabey’s L’Ambre de Carthage, I’m getting it from there. She was also kind
enough to help me on that way by giving me a sample. π
She also gave us Giulietta Capuleti perfume to try which you get on a cloth tissue. It has 20 different rose essences in it (and the price shows it, over 400 Euros for 100ml) but smells wonderful (if you like rose perfumes).
This ends our Rome perfume journey and as it was such a good one, I would like to share a 10ml decant of Electra with one lucky winner. Just state your interest in the comments. π
Pics for Ale Parfum and Giulietta taken from their respective sites.