Mona di Orio's three new scents: Tuberose, Vanilla, Vetiver

Among friends attending the party Campomarzio70 gave last Saturday for the opening of the new store located in Via Vittoria (Rome), there was Mona di Orio: she was wearing a little black dress, a micro-hat covered with black feathers and a pair of red gloves. Only Vero Kern was as stylish, with a purple dress with puffed sleeves made of white Mongolian fur and a golden carrè that suited her perfectly. Some perfume ladies possess a very special allure, allowing them to wear things that on any other girl would be questionable.

Mona made me smell a preview of her three new creatures: a tuberose fragrance, a vetiver and a vanilla, being launched in the coming months. The three fragrances will be included in the line "Les Nombres d'Or" because as the Cuir, the Musc and the Ambre (which are already out, in Les Nombres d'Or range), also tuberose, vetiver and vanilla accords constitute the basis of perfumery, and hundreds of historic fragrances of great Beauty have been built around these notes and the accords they can create.

I'll speak about Tuberose first, because it's a note that I thought I knew well in all her facets: from the powerful Fracas (Piguet), to meditative Nuit de Tuberose (L'Artisan Parfumeur) to canforaceous/medicinal Tubereuse Criminelle (Lutens), to animal and gourmand (Histoires de Parfum)... In short, tuberose is a flower allowing many different directions, as long as you manage her exuberant temperament and learn how to take her wherever you want. Mona's take on it shows a lightness, a freshness, a whole new light completely unexpected for me. It 'a recognizably tuberose fragrance, but is treated with a light hand and is almost virginal. A completely new take on this note.

Vetiver opens with citrus fruits surrounding a green/wet/smoked note of vetiver, enveloping it in light. In the base, a rough yet refined cedarwood adds a bit of weight and body to a fragrance literally immersed in light. It may resemble a tiny bit Vetiver46 by Le Labo for the citrus opening, but the last is much "heavier" in the smoky sensation, here it is more a suggestion.

Also the Vanilla scent seems to have been made for people who don't like the note at all: here too Mona has chosen to explore a different direction of this passe-partout note, used fairly too much and become banal. Forget the cream brulèe, forget all the cloying and heaviness, here's a start of citrus fruits, some flowers that I haven't identified, a drop of rhum (a drop, no more), with biscuit-flavoured sandalwood to close. The result is bright, slightly floral, delicately and unearthly, I'd definitely wear it with pleasure.

All three new scents are calls to get more open, to explore notes that usually are not among your favourite, and just that I recommend to you: go and smell them as soon as they get out, because you might be surprised.
Delicacy is the most important and difficult lesson left by Mona's Maestro (great Edmond Roudnitska); here Mona seems to have elaborated it with full success. Delicacy doesn't equal "scents with no backbones, dull, with no temperament", quite the opposite: delicacy means they have such a defined personality as to afford not to scream, not to invade. In fact, the three fragrances are transparent, immersed in light, delicate on the skin as puffs, don't radiate too much and don't invade other's people space, yet they are perceivable distinctly and with good presence, and last for hours.
They show that the direction taken by Mona with the first three "Nombres d'Or" scents was only the first step of a transition between the "youth" composition to the "mature". Here, maturity and expressiveness are perfect in my opinion, fragrances are really exciting, well-built, consistent with what she is like now. Mona has grown up and blossomed completely, and she admits it: "At a certain point in your life (I will not say her age) you can afford not to prove anything to anyone anymore, and what you do, you do it just because it makes you happy. Today I'm this one, and I'm happy if you smell it in my fragrances”. Brava!

For Mona's website click here
Pic from Mimifroufrou