The Puredistance company prefers not to release lists of notes for its perfumes, preferring that we experience the scents as a whole rather than focusing on the individual pieces. This was a challenge for me.
Normally, part of my enjoyment of a perfume is the aromatic sleuthing I do - the teasing out of individual notes of a perfume, so that I understand the story it is trying to tell me. I love the "aha" moment when I recognize a particular note and appreciate how it's been used in this perfumes as compared to others that I've smelled. But that's just the "perfume nerd" in me.
Most people enjoy a perfume as a complete experience, not as an analytical exercise. And maybe they're right. Perfume as art isn't about the brush strokes, it's about the personality of the perfume and if it speaks to you or not. Here's what Antonia had to say to me:
Antonia is a green floral of great beauty. Wearing Antonia is like walking through an orchard in bloom on a warm afternoon. The trees are buzzing with bees and the sun turns the leaves and flowers into a dance of green and gold.
This green floral is not dry, like the chypres I've reviewed lately, but warm and sweet. It more like a seamless blend of green and floral and oriental. It's soft, never loud, but it's also quite strong with good sillage. The perfume contains 25% perfume oils. It's expensive and difficult to find in Canada, but if you fall in love you can order it online.
If Antonia was a season, she would be late spring becoming early summer. If she was a person, she would be a young woman. Antonia is kind and pretty. That's how I experienced it. (But, nerd that I am, I couldn't resist trying to list out some notes below.)
Perfumer: Annie Buzantian.
Notes: green notes, galbanum, flowers, vetiver, vanilla
Image: detail from Botticelli, Spring 1482, via Bob Swain
