Escale à Portofino

The house describes a fresh, citrus and aromatic eau de toilette. It cites essences of Calabrian bergamot, Italian citron, Sicilian petitgrain, bitter almond, orange blossom and Mediterranean cypress, without assigning them to tiers: the order of its lists serves as a guide here.

Top

Citrus opens the fragrance. Citron, grown in Italy since Roman times according to the house, yields its essence by expression; together with bergamot and petitgrain, it draws for Dior a lively, radiant and gentle freshness.

Heart

Orange blossom, distilled into neroli essence, brings its delicacy. Victoria Frolova (Bois de Jasmin) finds it clean and sweet, with a barely perceptible heady edge. Dior gives bitter almond the role of softening the citrus freshness and leaving a tender trail.

Base

Mediterranean cypress closes the house’s current list. At launch, in 2008, the announced notes also included juniper berry, cold spices, cedar, a white musk, caraway and galbanum, which the current page no longer names.

What stays out

Lemon, which some lists place at the top, is not cited by the house as a note, although the label declares a lemon essence. The white musk of the launch notes no longer appears among the materials highlighted today.

What the label declares

The house publishes a list of thirty-two ingredients that names several essences: bergamot, orange peel, lemon, geranium, orange blossom and spearmint. It also lists linalyl acetate, benzaldehyde, the molecule of bitter almond, carvone and camphor.

It declares regulated allergens, including limonene, linalool, hydroxycitronellal, citral, geraniol and farnesol, two UV filters, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane and diethylamino hydroxybenzoyl hexyl benzoate, and three colorants, CI 14700, CI 19140 and CI 60730.