PANDORO

As an Italian, Christmas has always smelled like Pandoro. The tall, star-shaped cake from Verona is soft, buttery and delicately scented with vanilla. But the best part is the ritual that takes place before anyone is allowed to eat it.

You open the bag, pour in an extravagant cloud of icing sugar, close it again and shake it vigorously until the entire cake is covered in white. When the bag is opened, a sweet, powdery scent rises into the air, while some of the sugar melts into the warm, moist surface of the cake. The specific smell of icing sugar clinging to the buttery crumb became the starting point for this perfume.

I wanted to recreate that sensation without making something obvious or childishly sweet. Pandoro had to be a sophisticated gourmand: comforting and delicious, but with the structure, complexity and evolution of a fine fragrance.

I began with real vanilla and white musk, creating the impression of pure powdered sugar falling onto a freshly sliced cake. A touch of wild carrot seed oil, hand-picked in the Umbrian countryside, completes the effect with notes of honey, iris and vintage face powder.

Then came tuberose absolute and jasmine. Their creamy white petals melted into the buttery accord, adding an unexpected floral depth. Vetiver and sandalwood gave the fragrance a woody structure. Their dry, earthy notes contrast with the soft sweetness, grounding the composition on the skin.

The result is a gourmand built like a fine perfume: fluffy yet structured, nostalgic yet sophisticated, and dusted with an irresponsible amount of icing sugar.

WILD CARROT SEED ESSENTIAL OIL (Daucus carota), hand-foraged in the Umbrian countryside and locally steam-distilled

Wild carrot grows among the meadows, fields and uncultivated land of the Umbrian countryside. During summer, it produces delicate white flowers arranged in umbrella-shaped clusters. As the season progresses, these curl inwards to form small nests filled with aromatic seeds.

Once fully mature, the seeds are foraged by hand and locally steam-distilled. The essential oil comes not from the root, but from the plant’s tiny seeds, where its most concentrated and complex aromatic character is found.
The yield is exceptionally low: 100 kilograms of seeds produce just 100 grams of essential oil, equivalent to 0.1%.

Hand-foraging and the minute quantity of oil obtained make this ingredient particularly rare and precious.
In perfumery, wild carrot seed essential oil is prized for its earthy, aromatic and delicately powdery character, with nuances of wild herbs, honey, woods and iris. It adds depth to floral and woody compositions, softens sweet notes and lends fragrances a sophisticated softness reminiscent of face powder and vintage cosmetics.

Ingredients: Alcohol Denat., Parfum, Italian Wild Carrot Seed Oil (Daucus Carota Sativa Seed Oil), Vanilla Bean Absolute (Vanilla Planifolia Extract), Tuberose Absolute (Polianthes Tuberosa Flower Extract), Tonka Absolute (Dipteryx Odorata Bean Absolute), Clove Bud Oil (Eugenia Caryophyllus Bud Oil), Amyl Salicylate, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal. Vegan