Zagara e Patchouli

Very classy. Zagara e Patchouli opens big, bright, and herby. It captures that captivating freshness of a garden in bloom, but without any traditional floral at the start. The opening is somehow similar to the smell when you get a fresh tomato and break the little green top off. Within an hour, it mellows into a feminine floral, still fresh, but now closer to the skin. It's subtle, authentic, and clean but not at all soapy. The effect is fleeting, like when you walk past a blossom and just catch a whiff as you go by. This is one where I have to put nose to skin to remember it after a few hours, not because it's gone, but because it's incorporated so completely with my body chemistry that I can no longer discern it. A lady walked up to me with a big smile to tell me I smell lovely :)

A pleasant, light scent, seemingly containing quality ingredients, in what I think of as the Italian manner: understated, simple, suitable for office wear. Good longevity, but fairly quickly retreats close to the skin. If I had had to make a blind guess, I would have guessed it was a Santa Maria Novella offering. I usually cannot get over a fixed association in my mind between mint notes and oral-hygiene products, but in "Zagara e Patchouli" the mint is a subdued, if slightly dandified, part of the overall composition. I rather like it. But for the mint note, it would be a hesperidic/patchouli scent like many, many others. The mint makes it gently distinctive. I disagree that it is "very feminine." It is a bit posh, a bit dandy, but I have an easier time imagining a man wearing it than a woman. A possible summer-weather try for SMN fans. Not assertive enough for my personal taste. My score: 6.5/10

Very feminine for a fragrance marketed as for men. Fresh and green, but there is also something sweet but natural that reminds me of clover flower scent.