Fanfarone Italiano

Fanfarone Italiano is a unique take on coffee gourmand. It opens with green and a slightly bitter citrus note. As time passes, the coffee starts to emerge, along with some Cacao and nutty notes. I do detect a boozy accord, but it's very faint. Vanilla follows suit and completes and dry down. To me, the opening smells very classy and elegant but in a casual way. The dry down, is cozy and intimate. The fragrance as a whole is so well-blended and unique. The coffee is not too strong, the Cacao is not too bitter, and the Vanilla is not overly gourmand. Every note is just the right amount. Because of this balance, I believe the fragrance can be worn year-round, day and night included. Performance is okay at best, but to me this isn't supposed to be a beast-mode fragrance. With 1 spray on the wrist, it provided arm-length projection for the first hour, became a skin scent for 4-5 hours, then disappeared. Unisex but lean slightly feminine.

Fanfarone was the first perfume I actually went to the trouble of getting a travel size to test (it is quite spendy, too much so for a blind buy). I flew through that in days and went for the full bottle. Self-control, what's that? It is unusual, sophisticated and leans just a bit masculine. Although the notes read as though it should be a gourmand it is quite austere and low-sugar. Puts me in mind of sitting at an outdoor cafe on a just-warm-enough day, drinking an espresso and catching the scent of nearby countryside or woodland.

This is Aventus with some sweet coffee on the top.

Testing this blind, it opened up as pistachio and morphed into toasted almonds, with a bit of candied sugar giving a gourmandy feel. By the end of the day it was more dry and while relatively long lasting was no more than a skin scent. Looking at the notes now, you do get a good sense of the current buds in the opening (turning the walnut into a brighter pistachio) and the cognac is constant just under the walnut which is more of a candied walnut with the vanilla and sweeter chocolate gourmand presence it has. The dry end-of-the-day does have a cocoa feel to it. Overall it is far more nutty than chocolate, and I didn't get much feel for coffee of the other notes. It's, ok and a difficult recommendation. You would really have to be in love with it I think to go all the way with it.

There is something truly nauseating for me in the opening, but luckily it goes away after a minute or two. What is left is a strictly male fragrance, I do not find it to be unisex at all. As a masculine fragrance though it is worth considering.