L'Ossido and L'Angelo (Rossella Gatti - L'O Profumo 2017)

When Rossella Gatti contacted me in order to send me her last two creations named "L'Ossido" and "L'Angelo" I didn't know anything about her and her line L'O Profumo" (website here). However, I liked them both so much that now I'm obsessed with the idea of smelling all the others.

L'Ossido (Oxide) is inspired by the smell of rust. That is, the rust that is at her home, because rust, in my house, unfortunately, smells differently. This one smells of cold spices, helycrisum, galbanum, incense, lavender and a curious note of roasted sesame that I did not know. All this bright, cold, dry, herbaceous accord, complements a magnificent rose oxide note, with its rosy, pungent metallic brightness and the geranium aspect. This note, which is rather difficult to tame, is perfectly balanced to take the center of the stage without altering everything else, and what's more, leads the whole accord to a higher octave. The result is an original, unusual fragrance: cold, metallic, bright, dry and intensely green, with great charm and even greater persistence (this is an eau de parfum, but as intense as an extract). Towards the end, when the spices, galbanum and oxide run out, there remains the helycrisum-incense duo, sweetened by some slightly gourmand notes. I loved this perfume all along the way, so much to empty the bottle in few tries.

L'Angelo (The Angel) is a perfume played on an incense/cocoa accord, enveloped by notes of tonka bean and iris. The idea of incense associated with gourmand notes is not new, I think of L'Orpheline (Lutens) or its illustrious progenitor, Passage d'Enfer (L'Artisan Parfumeur), two musked incenses married with black pepper and sweet notes.

But while the other two are as fluffy as a duvet caressing your skin, L'Angelo features more than softness, a crystal brightness. The Angel's wings do not evoke feathers but their flying, white, dazzling, against a clear sky.

Both L'Ossido and L'Angelo show an attempt to balance opposite sensations, harmonize duality by finding a meeting point between the poles. This perspective makes them interesting. They also feature a really unusual and fascinating delicacy -the Roudnitska meant it- that is, a light, fresh, delicate hand. They project enough, without overdoing. I liked very much the use of particular raw materials used with some courage.

If you want to know her, her line L'O 'Profumo, her shop is in Florence!

I called her to ask some questions:

Rossella, from what sources did you learn composition?

"I attended classes in Paris, but I've learned almost everything from my grandfather, who worked in Paris, and from ten years of work in Aromatherapy."

You're not the only one: Vero Kern, too, was an Aromatherapist, I think it can be a fertile ground for new stimuli. Tell me something about Resonance: you wrote to me that L'Ossido and L'Angelo have undergone this treatment.

"In practice, fragrances are kept for forty days in canvases covered with rainbow colors, and labels with terms like "Love”, “Harmony”, “Beauty”, “Joy "and so on. Liquids - water, above all - resonate with these concepts and alter their structure even on a physical level. The molecules fit in a different, more harmonious way and those who read the books by Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto (info here) know what I'm talking about."

I've read them, and if the effects are the ones I sniffed in Rossella's fragrances, it's really worth to deepen this idea!

(pic via Foodmag)