Arso

FREAKED OUT! FIRSTLY, AWESOME SCENT! Secondly, after purchasing this on reviews elsewhere I was astonished to read here so many reviews summing up my thoughts. I'm trying to purchase Norne and I was going to compare this to Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles. The note table is for once very appropriate however is as often the case most reviews here are apt in capturing the emotive simple feel - i.e yes it smells like a campfire. burnt needles etc etc. Yes there is cedar, resin etc... I get some of the urinic tinges, the pine forest etc etc but its more than this... Yes, its vaguely like SL FeA though this is rougher, sharper and brighter and to me and feel more like only two layers - a bright powerful fresh pine on top and an earthy complicated rich base as opposed to SL FeA which is smoother, more rounded, more syrupy, bolder in the middle and a stronger scent bubble. I can't speak for Norne yet but I intend soon... When it is like this it puts this perfume into a category like Parfum De Marlys Galloway or to a degree Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles (which is the most forgiving) - where it is challenging and confrontational to a degree for but just verges on wearable. Every one I have offered a sniff to has never been negative - just either a raised eyebrow, pout and a "cool, interesting" or a "wow, never smelled that before, where do I get it?". The negative reviews here I think are unfair, this has typical Profumum Roma construction - huge concentration of oils and reeks of amazing quality. ABSOLUTELY ridiculous longevity. The Pine which is super strong is easy to miss even though its projecting as it is like menthol or slightly even in the vain of vaseline or camphor even - you will easily suffer olfactory fade until you refresh yourself with a movement or waft or reset your senses. There in lies for me the beauty - the mid and base notes are blended together and are closer to a skin scent but they are so delicious I can't help but draw my nose close to smell and decipher. Its this simple in fact two dimensional layer that has me hooked. My bottle came with a refillable roll on - I keep it a work and when sometimes my perfume of the day has faded mid afternoon I put this on - it freshens me up - its like cocaine - can't stop putting nose to arm to get the amazing depth. To put a different spin on the description (as opposed to the technical notes), at first I though of smelling a freshly prepared simmering pot of say, a thick soup or sauce of fresh not too sweet tomato, nutmeg, clove, bay leaves, paprika perfectly blended (as your mid and base) with wooden perforated chopping board on top with fresh mint leaves on top it and you breath in the steam whilst your sucking on a menthol lolly. I'm reminded of this first more than a pine forest with a campfire. I agree with some that the leather is hard to detect for me and this is somewhat herbal though as I've described its almost more of a vegetative organic feel to me. If you'd like to try a left of field scent for the first time this would be my second recommendation after Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles (as Ive already reviewed) not because its somewhat similar but because it just makes you wonder how something unconventianal smells so good. Its worthy having it sit on the shelf together - make no mistake they are different enough to justify both. This is fresher - works for summer and SL FeA is boozier, warmer for winter. Sounds like Slumberhouse Norne may also make the perfect trifecta ;)

"Evocative" Profumum Roma amazes me with every creation, and it ranks up there with Amouage and Xerjoff for me. Each fragrance takes you on a journey and Arso isn't an exception. Consider a journey around Christmas time to the middle of the woods to meet with close relatives in a wooden cottage. Happy times are awaiting. Good food, love, warmth, relaxing music, fireplace, red wine, and gifts. It is cold, not blistering, and grounds are covered by snow. The sky is mostly clear with stars shining but with a few scattered clouds. You are fully equipped for the journey. There is no apparent threats or moments of scare. No starvation, no attacks by wildlife, accidents, or freezing. Just a long walk in the middle of the woods and through several hills. After a long journey and going through hills and valleys, the cottage finally becomes visible from the middle of the trees once you reach the top of the last hill. Adults are creating a camp fire of pine woods. Smoke and fire can be seen and laughs can be heard from distance. As you get closer to the cottage, you can smell the burning smokey pine trees. People come forward and greet you. You enter the cottage and warm yourself by the fireplace. Your better half dressed in beautiful and colorful Christmas clothes approaches you to give you a snug hug followed by a kiss. She cozies up with you until you warm up from your journey. After having a good meal, you go out by the well established fire to enjoy the shining stars, the company of your better half, and the warmth of the camp fire indulged by smoky burning pine tree. Arso depicts the most natural form of burning pine trees in cold weather. It is extremely dark, deep, and rich. It has to be one of the best combos of woody smoky fragrances. The longevity and performance is beast mode like any other Profumum Roma fragrance. No more than 2-3 sprays please because it is capable of filling a ballroom. I spilled some by mistake in my car's glove compartment. I could still smell it months after. Arso may not be playful or sensual like rose fragrances, but it can be romantic if it is applied properly. It is best to be worn in colder months. Thank you Profumum Roma for this wonderful creation. 10/10.

I adore Arso. Over the year that I have owned a bottle, it has grown to be my absolute favorite scent. My signature scent. My bottle has also "matured" during the year and has become deeper and richer and in my opinion even better, to the point where I almost thought there had been a reformulation when I smelled a fresh bottle recently. The note breakdown is deceptively simple, but because of the amazing quality of Profumum Roma, the result is a rich, thick, deep, intense, resinous, balsamic, warm, cozy, masculine, rugged, and very natural-feeling fragrance. It doesn't really smell like "perfume"... To me it smells like a pine tree oozing with sticky sap and baking in the sun on a hot summer day. That smell of walking through a pine forest on a really hot day... And I love it. Nothing else compares to this. Woodcut isn't the same at all (sorry, Ellen). Cape Heartache doesn't even come close (sorry, Josh). This has deep, warm, woody, resinous bass, and ticklingly effervescent, piney, terpenic treble. There's a certain sweetness, but no more than what feels natural in a rich pine resin. There is a subtle smokiness, but to me this isn't nearly as smoky as the name (which means "burned") and some of the other reviews might imply. As it dries down it changes (as fragrances with natural notes tend to do), perhaps transitioning a bit from pine to incense, and seems to reach a point where it actually starts gaining in intensity after a few hours. It turns into something that reminds me of BO, or of sexual pheromones, in the best way possible and without being the least bit animalic or funky. I wouldn't say it's a "clean" scent per se, but there's a refined purity to it that makes it hard to call it "dirty", even though it's so rugged and natural. I could go on and on, gushing about this wonderful fragrance, but in short: Possibly the best natural wood scent ever. Thank you Profumum Roma for creating this gem. May you never reformulate or discontinue it.

File Under: Reversal of Fortune Yet another review saying "this wasn't at all what I was expecting, but wowzers it's good". Either I've gone anosmic or this was named in error: I get hardly any smoke at all, maybe the odd waft from a distant church brazier, where I expected this to be hugely camp-fire-y, ashy, Christmas tree on fire, etc. I was also braced for something way too butch for most women to wear, metaphorically covered in edgy tattoos and dressed in a lumberjack shirt. Right out there on the frontier of being wearable for me. On first spray it even *feels* thick with real resin - your wrist stays sticky and shiny where it's been sprayed for ages, leading me to expect an absolute monster of timber and petrol notes. But no. Instead it's just the warmest, most enveloping woody incense ever, with an astonishingly smooth gentle mix in the centre, so harmonious it's almost sweet without being sugary in any way (perhaps it's the resin, so mellow and huggable here it feels almost like amber without the headache) and dressed in haute couture tailoring. (Not a leather jacket, though - I don't consciously get leather either, but maybe it is discreetly helping knit that gorgeous centre together.) Lasts like a champion on my (female) skin and doesn't suddenly morph like a werewolf into something savagely feral once night falls- just gets gentler and sweeter than ever, and clings on tenaciously without cloying. Call me a tree hugger but I'd happily hitch my wagon to this one. Comparisons: the only thing this really shares with Fille en Aiguilles (another great forest love) is for me the initial pineyness; Arso is mellow gold with absolutely none of the FeA's deep-red stewed fruit and syrup. Much closer IMHO to the dry, high, Saharan airy feel of Wazamba. Which is fine by me. It's a cracker.

Profumum Roma’s Arso accomplishes the great feat of mixing some great cold weather notes of resin, pine, cedar, incense, and leather, and somehow coming off a bit sweet in the process. I love the mix of notes on paper and they end up being harmonious on skin, as well. The leather is comparatively subdued, as I get mostly pine, incense, and resins, but this certainly still feels like a partly leather fragrance somewhere in the mix. I regard it as almost halfway between the sweeter Imaginary Authors Cape Heartache and the sharper D.S. & Durga Bowmakers, though it leans closer to the former, just without its noteworthy strawberry sweetness. Still, there’s something about Arso that’s sweet, and I assume it to be the resins. One notable YouTube reviewer said it wasn’t sweet at all, but on my skin, it’s very sweet---perhaps not all-out gourmand sweet, but certainly sweet enough to be called a sweet fragrance, though of course experiences vary. I believe Arso is depicted as unisex but I regard it as masculine-leaning , though I could imagine some women liking it. Performance is very strong, high projection and well above average longevity. I’m not sure I’d necessarily buy this one given that I own the two similar fragrances I cited above, and Arso is the highest priced of them of them all, at $250 for 100ml, but it’s certainly something to consider in the future. A great fragrance, especially for cold weather. 9 out of 10