Thoughts on Francesca Bianchi brand?
The selection of perfumes she's made is amazing, but which would you recommend to try first? Let's say best 3 of the line, most original and female-leaning.
The selection of perfumes she's made is amazing, but which would you recommend to try first? Let's say best 3 of the line, most original and female-leaning.
I tried quite a few from the sampler set. I am not sure if these fit into any of your categories, but here are my three favorites and my reviews of each, for context. (I always find it helpful when someone lists favorites and shares the "why" of what makes it a favorite!)
The Dark Side is actually the scent that drew me to this brand in the first place, and I’d been intending to order a sample for some time now. I was expecting darkness, but I was not expecting a savage lycanthropic metamorphosis under the full moon of a midnight bazaar. A whirlwind of feverish spices, the smoky char of glowing resins, the harsh metallic tang of hot breath, and the acrid sting of writhing, burning skin, a feral cocktail of predatory hunger and pitiless urges.
I had the most interesting experience with Luxe Calme Volupte. I was reading about the idea of invoking the muse when I first sprayed some of the perfume on my skin, and I realized, enrapt by the verdant, vegetal tendriling greenery and the balsamic woodsy galbanum, that my mind had started to wander as I began to both daydream and open browser windows just to get a better sense of the fragrance’s inspiration. I was reading the Baudelaire poem referenced in the brand’s copy when I became aware of the bitter bite of the citrus pith and peel and sour zinger of the tropical fruit pulp, and that’s when I glanced down at the book I was meant to be reading, and realized that the very next sentence in this book, utterly unrelated to the perfumes I was sampling, mentioned Charles Baudelaire! Maybe I am unduly influenced but I’m convinced this is the scent of deep, creative wellsprings; fertile, magical places, teeming with connections and synchronicities, and invocations to “Whosoever can bring light to a hidden thing.”
Under My Skin is the extraction of musk from shadow; it’s an immersive and hypnotic portal where you feel yourself slipping slowly under the depths of a lightless pool scented with leather and sandalwood and iris and--this could just be my brain’s association with the name of the perfume and a similarly titled movie-- it’s an olfactory interpretation of the eerie minimalist strings track that lends fear and mystery to the alien temptress's methods for luring and capturing her quarry in Under the Skin, the 2013 film.