Rosarium

Rosarium is probably my favorite release in this utterly compelling range. A smooth and highly comforting take on liturgical incense. There's something very familiar about this fragrance and yet, somehow, while bringing to mind of other similarly themed fragrances, there's still something incredibly unique about it. The incense is clean, waxy, white and with a crystal quality. It feels fragile in its beauty but never ephemeral. There's a sense of detachment that pervades Rosarium throughout its evolution but it's juxtaposed to something warm and comforting. In this context, it reminded me of L'Orpheline by Serge Lutens. Mind me though, the two are pretty different in smell but they share the same fragrance profile. Several shades of gray (I promise less than fifty) with a lilac dye thrown in the palette. They're both aloof and affable at the same time but while the Lutens feels somewhat like a Comme Des Garcons wannabe, the Ciampagna takes the rural / rustic route. There's the violet-incense combo of Maria Candida Gentile's Exultat, something to enhance the general grayness probably provided by the iris-cedarwood duo (Carthusia 1681) while the waxy incense give a remarkable sense of cleanliness. The drydown is all about a super warm and enveloping vanillic-woody-incense base with vetiver keeping the general powderyness / sweetness perfectly in check. Cedarwood is never overdone so that the fragrance can keep a well rounded structure from top to bottom. As most others *Ciampagnas*, Rosarium is incredibly easy to like while being slightly twisted to preserve its subtle but very defined identity. Fantastic presence and extraordinary longevity. Well refined, easy to wear and completely addictive. A winner. Rating: 8-8.5/10

A sepia photograph of the small village church in Almodovar's "Bad Education". A photograph of many such places at once. Sunlight through the windows, wooden benches soaked in frankincense for so long that they almost lost their smell of wood. Sweetness - abandoned honey jars. Dense, but also purifying instead of suffocating. Iris and violets smeared and dried over a stone surface. Not the grandeur of the big cathedral with thousands of people. Frankincense as a very personal experience.

This smells like Temples in Kyoto... Nostalgic. Resinous olibanum incense combined with temple's sweet woody interior in the humid heavy valley air. I am very impressed by the samples I bought from Angela Ciampagna. All of them have a very distinctive fingerprint. I will be exploring the house more.

A good example of how green iris can become if the perfumer choses to bring that property out. In Rosarium iris butter (the root extract) is mixed with carrot seed, juniper and violet. That combination creates a very sappy kind of smell as if someone has snapped green stalks in front of your nose.

Rosarium will take you to a gothic church. You may wear your gardening shoes - it is first spring or early fall, after all - but Madonna will be wearing Like a Virgin regalia and Michael Stipe might appear to sing Losing My Religion. Layered with Molecule 01 + Iris, this is even more memorable.