Neroli Portofino

The house breaks Neroli Portofino down into three tiers: Italian bergamot, winter yellow mandarin and Sicilian lemon at the top; Tunisian neroli, orange blossom and lavender in the heart; amber and rosemary in the base. Its French text sets the sparkling neroli against the softer lavender, warmed by amber.

Italian citrus at the top

Bergamot, mandarin and lemon open the fragrance for the house, and Wikiparfum counts them among its materials. Victoria Frolova first smells an aromatic accord of herbes de Provence, lavender, thyme and rosemary, which the bergamot makes exhilarating, over a cool, crisp character.

Neroli, orange blossom and lavender in the heart

Tunisian neroli and orange blossom form the floral heart, which the lavender pulls toward the aromatic. Frolova finds a green, soft and silky layer there; the house speaks of neroli as a tonic, luminous note, and of lavender as a sunny one.

Amber and rosemary in the base

Amber warms the base, where the house places rosemary, which it calls aromatic. Frolova picks out herbal musks and a woody amber that give the fragrance a classical polish, and a cool, crisp character kept to the very end.

What stays outside the declared accord

Petitgrain, myrtle, jasmine, angelica and ambrette seed, which Wikiparfum names and Frolova lists in 2011, stay in the prose, as do Wikiparfum’s pittosporum, the thyme Frolova smells at the top and the herbal musks of her base.

What the label declares

The house page declares twenty-three lines: alcohol, water, Parfum, limonene, linalyl acetate, linalool, hydroxycitronellal, geraniol, citronellol, citral, farnesol, pinene, lavender oil or extract, eucalyptus globulus oil and bitter orange peel oil.

Then come lemon peel oil, geranyl acetate, bergamot peel oil, terpineol, camphor, beta-caryophyllene, terpinolene and alpha-terpinene. No colorant appears on it.