Masque Milano: Russian Tea (Julien Rasquinet) and Montecristo (Delphine Thierry)

 Masque Milano (English website here) is a new Italian brand, founded by two friends with brave characters, motivated, spirited and with a fantastic taste for fragrances.

To give life to their line they selected composers already established but yet not too famous, and commissioned them a collection of "scenes" of life or significant moments, places visited, friendship, love, moods, recurring dreams ...

Each fragrance in Masque Milano collection was born to share each of these scenes.

In this way, the five fragrances are consistent with each other, they form a whole ensemble with a strong vision behind, that you feel strongly in each perfume. I loved the scents themselves, and the idea of Italy they carry: not only they contain our best raw materials (helichrysum, bergamot, jasmine, lavender, tobacco etc), but their bouquets are open and exuberant, and at the same time absolutely elegant, that sort of effortless, relaxed elegance that bears no ostentation. All share a very natural feeling, "outdoors-y" and open. In addition, all the Masque perfumes possess a quality I would call "tasty" that makes them particularly intriguing and, again, very Italian.

Russian Tea, composed by Julien Rasquinet to evoke a typical evening in Moscow with the samovar shiny and steaming that spreads the smoky aroma of black tea, mixed with mint leaves. The pyramid is full of notes that alternate between feelings of heat and cold, between light and shadow (pepper, black tea, helichrysum, leather, birch and cistus labdanum on one hand and mint, magnolia, incense on the other), and these feelings are perfectly balanced, intense, refined, bitter and dry as a whip on the skin, to be easily worn by both men (and what men ... !!!) and women alike.

I found intriguing the two hidden accents: that bitter / green (magnolia) and the sweet biscuits that are served with tea (raspberry), which add complexity and nuances of the composition. For me it is a great scent, its austere beauty is revealed a little at a time, whenever I wear it, it affects me totally, I can not concentrate on anything else other than it. It embodies exactly my idea of sensuality in perfumery.

Even Montecristo, by Delphine Thierry, is a gourgeous scent: of course, here again you must appreciate dry and bitter accents and a certain complexity due to the setting... In this case, it is Montecristo, the island in the Tuscan archipelago. A house with ancient stone walls, a leather armchair, the tobacco from a cigar smoked in the cool shadows and, around, hectares of Mediterranean macchia. It's unusually played on heart and base notes with no real top to start from (rum, ambrette seeds, tobacco, cistus labdanum, benzoin, styrax, woods as majestic as cabreuwa, guaiac, cedar and patchouli). Elegant and deep without taking itself too seriously, it shows a radiant brightness and a rather surprising dynamic (being a scent of heart and base notes only).