Ninfeo Mio

Reviewing Ninfeo Mio is like doing a testimonial about a best friend or a sweetheart. It's just someone you love, regardless their flaws. This scent is a big love to me, it's the one I've found after a long dive in the perfume world, when I finally got a real idea of what I like and dislike. It was not love at first whiff, though. First time I knew I like it, but it was too much green leaning to masculine, reminded me of straw even. Second time I liked it better, but was afraid it was the perfume you like to smell on others, not yourself. Third time I sprayed on my hand, and oh god! I could not stop bringing it to my nose. I am aware of the cat pee or BO notes that other reviewers mentioned. I personally run away for this kind of scent, like Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune. Who wants to smell like didn't shower? However I feel that this notes are not obvious in Ninfeo Mio, they're just there, hidden between the green leafs and the milky fig. I couldn't stop loving it, even if I wanted to. Ninfeo Mio is my safe place. I wear it when I need to face a uncomfortable situation or in a day I would have liked to stay in bed. It's not safe because it will please everyone around me, but because it reminds me that it is MY scent, and I love it even if others don't. It reminds me that we don't have to please everyone, we need to be comfortable with who we are. About the scent itself, for me it opens with fresh sharp, dry greens, but very fresh. I love it for giving the "citrus cologne vibe" when applying it, but I'm happy it doesn't last too long. Then there is a sweetness showing up, from the fig, or fig leafs. It is not a gourmand sweet, but it is definitely sweet. No prob, as it is balanced by a woody background. On me it has light projection and it is really longlasting: 7-8h. For me it's more than enough. It's just by the very end of the scent that I start to get the pee vibe, but I wouldn't say cat pee, it's more like the room of a child who still pees in bed sometimes LOL I prefer to wear it in the colder months (which are 8, where I live) 'cause I find it to develop better in cold weather. For warmer months I prefer something even more fresh, anyway, like Petite Cherie or Eau d'Hadrien, even though I open my Ninfeo Mio very often just to smell it again :) I have the Dolce Vita collection and it's the same scent, just in a different bottle. And I agree with the reviewers who said it's the smell of fairies in a forest. It is really a natural magic scent!

Fig is a strange one... two fig scents that I really enjoy spring to mind. ADP Fico and the Diptyque Philosykos...this is unlike either of them! It's starts out with a classy citrus blast, by that I mean expensive smelling not like a lemon cleaning product or a 'smelled it all before' designer fragrance. Citron and I get some orange too it's really nice! Then comes one of the greenest of green smells I've experienced, reminiscent of L'Ombre Dans L'Eau by Diptyque. You also get the wonderful freshness of fig but it's very vague in the mix, also there's a slighly spiced, peppery vibe. If this just dried down with subtle wood and faded quietly... I'd have been a happy man, having discovered a brilliant summertime fresh fragrance that I would definitely wear I may have otherwise over looked. Then the magic happens in the drydown!! My favourite part about this fragrance is that even while the citrus and green notes are settling that subtle spice is building to a crescendo of resinous glory! The galbanum is a huge player in the fragrance for me and I've come across mastic before but while I'm not familiar with it's specific qualities it obviously brings something special to the party and the combination smells a bit like myrrh...then changes as it matures further. So given this fantastic combination and journey through different olfactory stages I have to say that this is a magnificent juice from Annick Goutal and a combination of citrus/greens/spice/resins I'd like to see more often. Perfectly unisex too, something about the whole composition seems to be balanced and the drydown to me is masculine but would be totally at home on female skin by the same rule. Excellent stuff this!!!

This perfume is amazing! It really is. I bought it after a long and protracted day of sniffing perfumes at Harvey Nicks, I'd tried on about 6 perfumes on different parts of my arm and spent the rest of the evening sniffing them. Something kept tantalising my nose and each time I sniffed the Ninfeo Mio patch it was subtly different each time but lovely. I went back and bought a bottle of course and I've been building an interesting relationship with it ever since! The first sniff is very, very citrusy but not just sharp - it's also boiled sweet lemony, you get a lot of herbs at first too. Then it becomes more woody and that's when this perfume begins to lift you into something beyond the usual perfume experience. I've read that Goutal wanted to reflect emotions and experiences and for me this is the experience of childhood - rummaging around in the bushes and trees with the sun warmed smell of twigs and leaves, my Mum's tomato plants, and more specifically the smell of raspberry bush leaves - green, earthy and warm with a touch of animal! Someone else has commented on that element, can't remember where, but it's true, there's a cumin-like sweaty note that makes this perfume strangely sexy, but not in a standard feminine way. It's very very close to natural smells of woodlands on a summer day but only if you're rolling around on the ground If you want unusual and you're not into flowery feminine classics, I think this might appeal very much

I was not very excited to test this perfume, because I actually don ́t like the smell of figs. But one day - as a real fan of the house Goutal - I took the change to discover Ninfeo Mio, while I was standing in a little parfumery. My first impression was: Yes, it is fig! But to my suprise it was a very pleasing fig, embedded in some interessing and sour citus notes in the top. Suddenly I had to think of a beautiful lemon grove, sunshine and a warm breeze on my skin. Later, on my way back home, the fragrance was getting smoother and I sniffed the warm and a bit milky wodden notes.(Like taking a rest in the shadow of a pistachio tree.) I found NM quiet nice as a single experience, but not breathtaking enough to buy a bottle. A few mounths later I fortuitous got a sample of Ninfeo mio (EdT) as a gift. I used one or two little drops of the sample on a relaxed evening at home. Ah, here comes the grove again! What a great juice to stimulate an uplifting daydream. Immediatley the wanderlust grabs me and NM sends me on a comforting short trip somewhere in the south. To make a long story short, I felt more and more in love with this creation. When the sample was empty, this fig has already captured me and my nose and I was "forced" to buy a bottle. This fragrance simply makes me feel happy, it conjures a smile on my face every time I use it. By the way, a voyage with the EdT lasts round about 5 hours on my skin.

This is my second bottle of Ninfeo Mio. I last bought it around 2010 and I'm delighted to say it hasn't changed a bit! In all this hot muggy weather I was craving something that cuts through the wilting heat. I re-tried Chanel's Cristalle (cool, mossy white flowers), Atelier des Ors' Blanc Polychrome (a hit of musky yet bright lemon and fig) but I was craving something keener and more reminiscent of the beautiful greens and yellows of this summer. Ninfeo Mio still hits the spot. The only gripe I have is the name - my mum asked what I was wearing - so I replied: 'Ninfeo Mio'. She laughed - 'What? Nympho maniac?!' A-a-nyway, I get the lovely references - to the garden of the Hesperides, the land of myth, the gardens of Ninfa in Rome that are filled with lemon trees. This wonderous perfume smells like you're rolling around in a bed of herbs - lemon verbena among them, also musky/bitter green leaves that remind some people of cat pee. It's not really like cat pee, if it was I'd not be able to wear this! This year I've been painting a series of paintings inspired by a mysterious clearing in a forest near me, in which I encountered the crumbling remains of a medieval friary, all overgrown with foliage, surrounded by ancient trees forming a canopy of green overhead. I wanted a perfume to make me think of that as I painted - that's why I re-bought Ninfeo Mio. Beautiful and unique!