Profumum Roma - Thundra

Since I am born and raised less than 150 km from the northern arctic circle elks, reindeers, cloud berries, vast forest- and marshlands and winding dirtroads was totally common during my childhood. As well as the snow was covering the landscape from late october until beginning of may and that the lakes was ice covered until the second half of may. I have at several occations pointed out the lack of perfumes inspired by that landscape, a type of nature covering major parts of the north hemisphere and also parts of the southern.


No way I want to move back to northern Sweden, but I would enjoy a perfume with a vaguely Nordic scent, at least the days I am homesick and got cloud berry cravings.


Profumum Roma´s Thundra offers, if not northern cloud berry marshes, at least a scent featuring northern barren land, coldness and still very aromatic. Thundra has something in common with Serge Luten´s Borneo 1834. Both of them are strong, powerful and patchouli dominated perfumes. But if Borneo 1§834 is the scent of distant East Asian islands, Thundra is the scent of patchouli, as it would smell if it was growing in Siberia, Alaska and the North calotte. If you can imaging the smell of Arctic patchouli, you can almost guess how Thundra smells like.


The cool in Thundra comes from mint, a mint note that never actually smells minty, but gives a chilly, cool and refreshing base to the patchouli. Thundra has an obvious patchouli scent, but at the same time a very strange and different patchouli scent. Of course there isn´t any cloud berries or alpine birches in Thundra, but still it smell very northern to me.


Usually I prefer warm perfumes before cold, but once in a while it is very pleasant to to wear something that smells both familiar and strange at the same time. Profumum Roma´s Thundra manage to do that. It could be a perfect patchouli scent for those of you that find patchouli to be to cloying, strong, heavy and overly orientalic. This is hightuned, clear and chilly patchouli, and pretty much a different take on patchouli.


Thundra is an unisex scent, and I think it´s very, very pleasant on both me and my husband. Lasting power is excellent as with most perfumes from Profumum Roma. The sillage is noticeable and the base is a reliable continuation of the top-and heart notes, wich isn´t always the case with Profumum Roma´s fragrances. Actually, the price is the only thing I can complain about.






Pic: Tundra, upperschoolpeeler

Profumum Roma - Aqua di Sale

I wrote earlier about that I am dreaming that I find the perfect perfume. Well, I don´t belive that it´s possible. I am constantly changing my mind and prefer to have a lots of perfumes that goes with different clothes and different weather. Perfumes for parties and perfumes for lonely moments, comfy perfumes, edgy and challenging perfumes, sexy perfumes and perfumes that make me happy. I don´t think that one, single perfume can live up to that.


But, I think it would be possible to find the perfect perfume in it´s genre. The perfect violet perfume, perfect incense scent and the perfect vanilla and so on.


I might have found the perfect sea scent, Profumum Roma´s Aqua di Sale. Usually I am not that thrilled about perfumes with the scent of sea or very aquatic perfumes. A lot of them become to fresh and sporty, like some male cologne supposed to be sprayed on after the gym or some others are to understatet and vague, so that I forgot that I wear a perfume after a short while. So the aquatic perfumes I´ve enjoyed this far has been kind of aquatic gourmands like Missoni by Missoni, L de Lolita Lempicka and Eau de Star by Thierry Mugler.


And there comes Aqua di Sale, among the one´s I´ve tried from Profumum Roma I´ve got almost the lowest expectations on Aqua di Sale and as usually it´s great fun to realise that I really like something from an usually not so liked cathegory of scents. Aqua di Sale isn´t one of those ozonic fresh aquatic perfumes nor the subdued and minimalistic kind either. It´s strangely concrete and still with a very aquatic feeling. It isn´t the sea, but an idealistic interprention, without traces of beach life, sun lotion and exotic flowers. Aqua di Sale is the sea at an forgotten, rocky bay at the mediterrean during autumn storms.


Aqua di Sale is the smell of a salty sea, but also soft notes of the cilffs, the air and the far away forrest. Aqua di Sale make me long for a mediterrean sea off-season, with abandoned taverns and beaches in rain and fog, taking long walks along empty shore lines and now and sit down on a rock and feel the smell of sea. Have you ever dreamed of being a lighthouse keeper on a distant island, Aqua di Sale may help your daydreams and imagination a little.


Don´t think of Aqua di Sale as a difficult and harsh scent, cause it isn´t. There is a light softness in it. A softness that remind me of the life giving facets of the sea, probably it´s that little softness that make Aqua di Sale so easy to like. This softness isn´t common in this kind of scents, and I´ve also encountered it in Creative Universes Mare, but that was unfortunatly a perfume that dissapeared on me.


Aqua di Sale has discrete sillage but is amazingly longlasting, aspecially if considering the scents wet and subdued character.


The basenotes abandoned the sea theme a little, overall the base notes in Profumum Roma´s perfumes seem to have little connection with the rest of the perfume for some reason. Aqua di Sale isn´t an excpetion, but the base notes is still nice and comfy. A little like coming in after a long day at the sea, maybe that isn´t so bad after all?


Unfortuntaly Profumum Roma is quite an expensive brand, and I don´t think I will buy a bottle of Aqua di Sale, but a nice decant would be just enough for start.


I strongly recommend it, you really should try it, even if you usually don´t like sea scents.


Do you have any sea smelling favourites?

pic: Waves, William Dalton, flickr

Profumum Roma - Alba

Anna Gran, Sollefteå.nu
The last coupple of weeks I´ve got a whole lot of samples in my mailbox. I made a gorgeus swap with the renowned perfumista Jackie Daniels. Only to sniff trough those samples will take a long time. I also received a whole lot of Profumum Roma (also called just Profumum) samples from a generous reader of the blog, thank you N! And as if that wasn´t enough I also just recently got a whole collection of samples from an italian perfume brand. I have to work real hard for some time apperantly, but since I have the most lovely work (even tough I think with lowest pay) it is only so much fun!

Once in a while you stumble upon a perfume you can´t smell. Of some reason you have an olfactory blindness to it or the combination of notes in it. Gucci by Gucci is one of these perfumes for me, I could as well try to smell fresh water. Another is my husbands Lacoste Elegance, I can smell it on him, but when I tried it, it smelled nothing on me. Strange, but interesting I think.

Among the Profumum-line there are some perfumes I really like, some I think is ok and some I don´t care for at all and then there is one I can hardly smell, Alba. And that´s the one I am going to write about today.

Well, I have to admit I kind of smell it, otherwise it would be pointless to write a review, wouldn´t it? I would simply have to write that I can´t smell a thing.

But that would be only partly true, since after all, Alba do smell, but it´s so subtle, elusive and softspoken that it make me utterly charmed, but also confused. The first time I tried it, I could hardly smlle it, but after trying it a coupple of times I have slowly get a grip on what notes to hunt in order to smell it. And, the scent is spellbindning.

This is skinscent at it´s best, Alba is a comfortable and sothing scent, but also alluring and very hard to catch. As a perfume I can´t hardly smell, I find my self sitting with my nose against my wrist a whole lot of time.

Alba consists of notes of different woods and amber, on me it´s clean, powdery and warm. But also something in it that is cool and uplifting, like some menthol or maybe eucalyptus? These contradictionary notes make me think of trees in snow, trees all covered with hoar-frost in a snowy world. Trees as concrete as trees in the summer, but surely a winter wood make a whole different impression than a wood in summer? I think that Alba remind me a little of CdG 3, but while I am chasing CdG 3 in a tropic jungle, I am chasing Alba in a white winter wood.

Tough, Alba isn´t a cold perfume, it is mostly a warm perfume, but with just enough tension to make it so exciting (at least in my nose). Did I wrote that it is clean, yes it has a name to live up to. But Alba is also sort of sexy, not in a raw, animalic or erotic way. No Alba is more like deep kisses and cuddles. It may leed to more, but that´s a different story...

Alba has this almost negative sillage, oddly enogh my family can smell it, even my husband. So I can´t really smell it porperly, but others notice it. Alba blend with my skin in the most penetrating way. It should be the top notes standing out a little, but with Alba it´s the other way around. Alba´s aura grows little by little and as I said, Alba is a strange, but lovely perfume.

It is amazingly longlasting, as almost all perfumes from Profumum. Alba still lingers on my skin after 10-12 hours, almost as noticeable as newly applied. Would I consider a big bottle of Alba? Not really, I think Profumum are quite pricey, and there is a lot of perfume I would buy in big bottle before Alba. But a nice decant would be fine! :)

Do you have any favourite from Profumum? Or maybe from some other italian (niche)brand? I think italian perfumes standing a little in the shadow from the french perfumes, why is that? Aren´t the italian perfumes as good? Or is it becasue they are generally a little more expensive? What do you think?

I think I have a lot of italian tidbits to write about, but as usual I will probably write about other perfumes as well.

Pic: Anna Gran, Sollefteå.nu