Now that I have recovered from my dizzy excitement of finding and buying new perfume, I can think about it a little more. It's not as refined or sophisticated as the Parisian Tam Dao. In fact, it's actually pretty elemental and gutsy. It's sandalwood and honey, and masculine (I told my bf he could use it too and I saw him helping himself this morning). But what I love about it is everytime I smell it I am taken somewhere (something that I have posted about before). It's not intellectual, it's completely emotional. And I love that it reminds me of Sicily (the inspiration for Ortigia and one of my favourite places), with its crumbling decay, burning sun, crude plates of pasta, piles of blood oranges, and eerily dark and quiet nights (thanks to years of Mafia rule).
The little leopards on the bottle also remind me of one of my favourite films, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), a three hour epic, directed by Luchino Visconti and based on the book of the same name by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. There is a nice article about it here. Now I think I'm going to have to hunt it down and watch it again (wearing new perfume and with a big plate of pasta and wine of course)!.
