Ambra Nera

When it comes to Ambers, my ultimate test is: “Does it smell old and dusty?” Naturally, there are myriad ways to approach the amber accord, but my most beloved ones are those that smell like old books, antique shops, old furniture, dark, mysterious, and with minimal sweetness. Ambra Nera from Farmacia SS. Annunziata 1561 is exactly that. A medieval brew from one of the oldest apothecaries turned into a perfume house, much like their neighbours, Santa Maria Novella. Both these houses have quite a few offerings that smell as if they were put together centuries ago, and perhaps they were. It is also a unique take on amber, as it brings unusual elements to the table: a medicinal and camphoraceous, almost antiseptic tinge, as well as a slightly moldy patchouli in the base. You know when you visit one of those XV century castles and the rooms smell of old furniture, closed heavy air, cold stone walls, and dust? That’s the most accurate depiction of this fragrance. If you ever did one of those castle tours, there you have it. The opening is perplexing, starting with a cold and bracing eucalyptus note paired with the most bizarre alcoholic beverage accord that reminds me of a local spirit drink made of plums called “tuica.” The booziness goes away, but the camphoraceous facet only softens and holds its ground till the very end. In the heart, you start to get a caramelized amalgamation of resins: labdanum, styrax, benzoin, and perhaps some vanilla to soften it slightly. It’s thick and warm, and very dusty. There is an animalic tinge to it, something I can’t place, soft yet detectable. It smells like a musk accord. Later, it gets woody and slightly musty, as the woods and the patchouli become more apparent. This is where I start to picture that Medieval chamber with dusty old furniture. I really like how the cooling effect in the introduction contrasts with the warm resins throughout. It feels bizarre, but in the most captivating way. It is an amber perfume that not only passes my test with flying colors but also manages to bring idiosyncratic elements to the table, something that most ambers lack, as they often feel predictable and dull. An old apothecary potion that cools your sinuses and warms your guts, that’s what Ambra Nera is. What I don’t understand is what happened to this house? They put out perfumes like Ambra Nera and Patchouly Indonesiano, two of the most spectacular and distinctive in their genres, made with high-quality ingredients and a bold, creative vision, only to get axed and now replaced with horrendous compositions reeking of cheap synthetics, obnoxious, boring, predictable, and mass-oriented. I have tried a few of their recent, more popular, and exclusive blends, and I had to remove the paper strips from the room because I couldn’t bear it. It is a shame. Another great house that dared to be different, even more, one with deep roots in perfumery, among the oldest in the game, swallowed by the commercial demand and monetary need. I am grateful to reminisce about their old days through exceptional compositions like Ambra Nera. IG:@memory.of.scents

This is gorgeous precious stuff. A labdanum centred perfume with layers and glorious layers of deep thick honey. Oh yes, this is sweet, but also herbaceous. Very classy and controlled. This will envelope you in a bucolic haze of burnished caramel. There is however, a beguilingly rugged depth to it. A close to primordial nature element. Like stepping back in time to a medieval forest. This smells ancient. I tried and tried but I cannot find the name of the perfumer who created this scent. My guess is this formula has been around for a long time, given Farmacia SS Annunziata's history. Hands down, one of my favourite ambers (it is up there with O Hira). I don't understand why this house gets so little attention. For the price, quality and evocative power, this is unparalleled. I prefer this over Profumum's Ambra Aurea and Fiori D'Ambra by a long shot. This, in my opinion, has far greater complexity. You do need to like honey in all its facets though. The honey here is fierce and bordering on animalic. I do love it. Ambra Nera is addictive. Every night before bed, I will uncap the atomizer and sniff the spray nozzle. I do this unfailingly and subconsciously for a handful of perfumes that I consider true love. The rest of em don't ever come close :)

It is hard for me to get my head around how some have rated the silage on this as soft. I think I am being conservative by saying moderate. For those not familiar with this house, they make fragrances that announce themselves from the outset, with just a small amount sprayed on. If you love Dior's Ambre Nuit, then the chances are you will love this one too. It isn't that they smell like siblings, more like distant cousins. A family resemblance to be sure, but not living under the same roof. Ambre Nuit is more flowery, but not as sweet. Some say this has a classic scent about it. I am not sure I have the nose to distinguish classic from new and classic, or new and old-fashioned. I love the scent, and I have lots of fragrances that are amber centered. I would put this in a similar ranking as some of the usual suspects (Aber Oud, Ambre Sultan, Amber Absolute) which to me at least is high praise. This is not a summer scent, but it would work in any other season, but leaning to the colder weather. I think it is unisex, because it has such a variety of high-quality notes blended well. This house has wonderful scents. Try a decant if you can.

This has become my go to scent of the day. It's so comforting, yet edgy. It's simple, but something new always surprises me in it. It's animalic, but nobody will be offended. It's green, but an amber through and through. It's deceptively simple, but in a way that becomes the centrepiece of your outfit on any given day. It's being DISCONTINUED, but you can still get a 30ml spray directly on Farmacia's website. And it's on sale, so for the price right now it is a bargain!! You won't find this unique and unpretentious of an amber fragrance anywhere else. And soon you won't find it anywhere. To quote Kafkaesque - a PUNK ROCK AMBER - that's right on the money.

So many fragrances are evocative of scent memories that I generally avoid using the term "nostalgia" in perfume reviews, but Ambra Nera gives me a feeling I can only describe as nostalgic. Alfarom's review below is a perfect description: this fragrance evokes feelings and sensations of rooms filled with refined antiquities and precious herbs and spices. In such a room, I would not be surprised to see Oscar Wilde. Beautiful, haunting, and intriguing.

A red-wine-rose-patchouli-immortelle with a musky ambergris armoire. There’s similarities with MKK, or L’Animal Sauvage/Carnicure, but tamer and more polite. It’s absolutely not like the olibanum / benjoin ambers. Like, it’s another interpretation of the amber concept. I own both versions of the bottles of Ambra Nera (the silver and the transparent) and I can guarantee that you won’t find a trace of Tom Ford’s, Goutal’s or MPG’s ambers here.

I absolutely love this mossy treacle of an amber. It's so thick and rich you feel like you can almost taste it. Totally entrancing stuff. The longevity is impressive too.

Amber Nera is rather like an old black-and-white B-grade horror movie: there are some chills, some dark and scary moments, but ultimately, it all ends up being comfortable and familiar with a vaguely contrived happy ending. Nice for those who like this sort of thing--like me. This fragrance opens with a cold, mentholated boom from a hefty dose of euclaptyus. After this, the dark resins kick in. There is an animalic quality that I suspect emerges as a result of the interplay between the patchouli and the benzoin. I don't believe that this fragrance contains any animal components. The amber notes get stronger as things wear on. This final phase adds a trace of vanillic sweetness and some warmth to what has been a dank, cold earthy scent up to this point. It is all just a bit gothic. Somehow the warmth and sweetness are not terribly harmonious with the opening we the middle, but it is sufficiently well blended that it all manages to work. I do like this fragrance. I like eucalyptus in fragrances and I enjoy animalic scents. Be advised that Amber Nera is not all that dark or earthy. If Figment Man by Amouage is a 10 on the "earthy dank and dark scale", then this fragrance is, at most, a 5. Bottom line: this scent is dark but wearable. I like the icy opening blast and the rich vanilla and amber in the base. The "Bella Lugosi's Dead" middle is interesting without being too much to wear. I reach for this fragrance when the weather is cool or cold and I want both something to alleviate the stuffiness of heated rooms and the amber note's warmth helps ward off the cold. I suppose this scent is unisex--it is really more about this scent being for those who enjoy it rather than for men or women to the exclusion of one of the other. I am sure some folks won't like it at all, so definitely sample if before committing to a full bottle. Unique, interesting and recommended.

A poor take on Ambra Nera Farmacia SS.by DB 1444 below.There is no medicinal notes in this edition.The rustic smell that reminds of old books, old peoples homes and so on are outdated phrases on Fragrantica. Like a old wine in a new boring bottle...... If it gives you a bizarre form of pleasure to stay inside a old peoples home all days with your nose digged into well used books full of dust, well, you are very welcome. For good reasons the brand changed the course to a much better amber scent in the recent years.DB do not seem to comprehend these facts.Well, i can not blaim his undeveloped taste for what is a good amber fragrance. If you know, you know. Amber lovers, the new version is a master piece, so get one if you want to get into the amber game. Dont let the review of DB1414 lead your mind into a old peoples homes where you on top of this gets old books stuffed far up behind there, where you know😄 Have a good one everyone and always stay critical to what you read.

Right after applying, Ambra Nera shows its greener side through the eucalyptus, cypress and vetiver notes. As the fragrance progresses, the resinous notes become stronger, I actually detect a rather prominent labdanum note while the perfume dries down. Instead of the color black, I associate dark yellow with this fragrance because the dry down reminds me of the smell of yellowed pages of an aged book or the smell of a library with a lot of old books in an ancient building. I guess the Hogwarts library would have smelled like Ambra Nera... This is not a sweet amber fragrance, but a rather fresh and deeply resinous one. In addition, the price-quality ratio is just excellent and Ambra Nera is definitely worth a sniff.

A powdery, dusty, slightly bitter amber delight. I love so many ambers and shouldn't want more but am savoring my sample of this so much that I might have to add it to my collection. Ambra nera+cool winter breeze=heaven.

"Sweet & Assertive Amber" Not a bad fragrance at all, but there are better options out there for a bit money money. Too sweet for my taste.

I don't know if I just got a bad batch (I got a later batch where the bottles are silver) but this just smelled of urine and dampness. I detected there was a fine fragrance somewhere way in the background but the urine/damp old carpets note was dominant. I tested it on paper too to see if it was just my skin chemistry, and asked friends to smell it and they had the same opinion. A pity since I ordered it directly from the original shop in Italy - they were no longer selling it but they had a few bottles in the back so they gave me a discount. It's fine now because I discovered Profumum Roma's Ambra Aurea and there is no need for another amber in my life.

I do not know how far does this our unbridled desire for knowledge about the fragrances that exist in the outside world, sometimes find myself wondering to myself here and conclude that this hike is more infinite than the length of heaven itself. The italianíssima Maison Farmacia SS. Annunziata, is the best there is, in my view, to define through its perfumísticas skills, the concept of naturalness printed on a fragrance, compared to fad and hypes that the world perfumery market has lately undergone the shelves. The naturalness with which Farmacia SS. Annunziata handles your products is a sublimity so eminent, that the sensation of light-headedness, confusion, uncertainty about what you have, and what they use no more until that feeling was fading completely, and that takes a bit since the fragrances of Maison are available in concentration Parfum Concentrated and secure, and exhale, beyond our understanding. Ambra Nera has a heavy opening, dark, something bordering on the density of an obscure climate with specific characteristics of a people / culture that is far from the capitalist world which we are daily exploited and oppressed by it. The note of benzoin is reminiscent of a ritual the edge of a volcano under an intense, scorching sun, which also uses root of Patchouli for smoking in its most raw form and "spiritually" speaking, condensed the characteristics of the described time. Soon, the fragrance reveals the other side of the volcano, there is a eucalyptus forest, burned down the same scorching sun, to the point of exhaling with the help of a wise wind, the smell not only of burnt leaves of vegetation, as well as aspects aromatic wood scorched by the sun's rays. For me, this very stage refers to radiant footprint Annick Goutal Ambre Fetish in with that same aspect resin / woody which is between sweet and rustic, characterizing it as an entirely shareable fragrance. Saying goodbye after a day fixed in the skin and a 10 h exuding culture / behavior / authenticity, Ambra Nera is woody, but virile nothing, because of an addictive sweet of heated resinous nuances that exude and fight stick-to-stick with aromatic wood touches (wood) that pungem this stage to see who reveals himself more than anyone. All this, without losing the originality of the natural, the unheard, the transcendent, the arriving and almost no longer goes [...] What makes this fragrance a phenomenon that brings us even culture, is the simplicity of the notes that she carries, combines, and unveils a memorial subjectivity that is housed in the records of the brain, and from there form in the imagination, one ideology of strands a truth not yet known, but we know that somewhere it exists. Farmacia SS. Annunziata has my respect.

Outstanding, non-sweet, herbal masculine amber, it smells Medieval and moldy in the best possible way: it is the most authentic smell of a very, very old library in an ancient Western European monastery. The "mold" I am talking about smells like mushrooms, yes, I do mean it, but, surprisingly enough, it's a wonderful smell and it blends lovely with the skin... No rot here, just big, old, musty folios all over. Gosh, I feel hypnotized by this perfume. It has a a very "elevated", almost majestic feel, it smells like history. I would not wear it on my skin, it does not smell like a perfume, it's just too charged with stories to wear it often. Definitely a masterpiece.

This is GORGEOUS stuff if you like dark-green herbal ambers. Great balance between challenging vegetal notes (almost animalic) and resinous woody amber (as opposed to woodyamber). Thick but not heavy, moderately sweet, enveloping but not loud and, most of all, far from the typical head-shop vibe of many fragrances playng similar themes...Last but not least, it comes in Parfum strength. Smells ancient, dark, mouldy, nocturnal and absolutely compelling. This is to amber-centered fragrances, what Mazzolari Lui is to patchouli. Top quality stuff. Rating: 8/10

Smells like a cute little souvenir store built from wood located in maybe Aspen, Colorodo or the mountains of Switzerland. You know the kind where little chachkas are laid out in straw baskets with red ribbons. The store has a dog who is allowed to be in the store. Maybe they sell candles too. *Finished wood with a sweet amber sap to it. This is a smell I would expect from a room NOT a fragrance. Not my type at all.

امبر و دارچین با یه شیرینی کوچیک و نرم وانیلی. تداعی یه بوی آشنا یه حس آشنا. فاز کریسمس طور.. کیک و چای دارچینی.. یه همچین چیزی. یکمم حس مطب دندون پزشکی داره شاید میخکه. در مجموع باحال و جذاب. عطر خیلی عجیب و خاصی نیس ولی دوست داشتنیه و با کیفیت و مهربون ---------- Scent & Quality: 8/10 Longevity: 7/10 Sillage: 7/10 Creativity & Uniqueness: 6/10 Affordability: 4/10 ----------- Overall: 6.4/10

This superbly constructed amber has no jagged edges, its austerity coming from the green notes that are presented in an effortless and refined manner. It's not sweet, but there's no dryness either. I cannot compare it to any of the usual suspects, it's its own category of amber; a medieval golden amber. Unique, mandatory sniff for anyone who likes ambers, orientals etc.

Too strong opening then it cools down with a very clear Amber scent. It is better to apply it on your skin not your clothes and it will last for so many hours. Do not wear it for school/ office unless it is really freezing. I like it but I believe there are limited places where you can wear this in.

Loved Hadassa & Alfarom's reviews. They really did a great job describing this fragrance. This is truly wonderfully made blend and I loved it very much. Darker, greener, little moldy type of amber, except it's a bit challenging to wear.

Scent: 8/10 Quality: 9/10 Originality: 7/10 Sillage: 7/10 Projection: 7/10 Longevity: 7/10 Price VS Size: 7/10