Blu Mediterraneo Fico Di Amalfi

A case study for how green sulfurous notes can be successfully handled to provide a refreshing and tantalizing effect. Generally speaking, this doesn’t happen. Grapefruit and the bitter green acrid facet of figs usually feel like the equivalent of inhaling chemically sour sandpaper. In Fico the grapefruit top is very well rounded by the juices and zest of other hesperidics, providing a smoothing dimension to its sour and sulfuric qualities. The contrast gives the grapefruit an underripe and green quality. Bracing and refreshing. The same trick of contrasts is presented in the heart with the fig accord. Obviously fig has a fruity aroma, usually sweet, a touch watery, creamy and honeyed, and sometimes a touch earthy. Then there is the other side of the fig accord which is a piquant torn-green-leaf type note, i.e. green and sulfurous. The contrasts here are a waxy fruity peppercorn and the citrusy green white floral note of jasmine. Still bracing and refreshing, now well rounded and less sharp than the opening, and if you were to give a very quick sniff of the top and the heart without taking note of the transition you would get the impression that the top is still going; these layers have remarkable continuity and cohesion. The base layer keeps to the brief as well by using the fruity side of fig to accent a very peppery cedar and floral soap musk combo. This isn't as perfectly impressionistic as the top or the heart but it serves the brief very well.

Fico di Amalfi is such a true unisex frag, and I can't explain how happy that makes me. Acqua di Parma as a whole, but this fragrance specifically, embodies the exact feeling of spending the summer in Sardinia, or really anywhere on the mediterranean coast. From the ever-present smell of warm climate trees, offering their fruit, brought forwards by the woodiness and the distinct citron note, to the fresh coastal breeze. This fragrance truly makes you feel like you just got out of the shower after a long day at the beach in a seaside resort, windows open, the sun still up high, and you feel like time has stopped for a moment. The longer this scent stays on the skin, the more it sweetens as the fig and fig leaf/tree note comes to the forefront, but beware that this isn't a sweet, fruity scent.

I once found this scent while looking for a gift for my father. He comes from a long line of visionaries you see. Upon our first olfactory meeting, Fico di amalfi, left me unimpressed. A man next to me purchased it instead and the sommelier of scents complimented him on his taste. I immediately bought the cologne upon hearing this as to also impress such a handsome and knowledgeable warhorse of fragrances. The worker to my dismay didn’t even acknowledge my delightful choice as my upper lip trembled with teeming expectation at his anticipatory compliment as he rung me up. I left that store in a heap, and with sheltered the broken pieces of my surreptitious hubris. Anyways I haven’t had the heart to wear this scent since as it now smells of despondent yearning and bergamot.

I bought this for my birthday in September because it reminds me of camping at the beach in the Eucalyptus trees near Santa Cruz, California. It may not be the Amalfi Coast, but it smells like my favorite place on Earth when I spray this on my wrists. As I inhale, the smell of the trees, mixed with salt air, wild sagebrush and cypress, takes me to that spot there along the Pacific Coast. Most have described this fragrance as citrus and figs, but my nose says Eucalyptus and cypress; then driftwood, figs, sage and thyme. It's a warm, bright green mountain air scent,, mixed with lots of oxygen from the ocean breeze drifting up the mountain slope. It's the most beautifully made fragrance and I hope they never change it.

This is a super amazing woody citrus fragrance. The citrus is very realistic to me. It smells like a grapefruit on a tree in a garden. It's sour and tangy but also a bit soapy and spicy. The fig is really nice and blends really well with the citrus. Unfortunately, the performance sucks.