Francesca Bianchi
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
A bright, zesty bergamot crackles sharply, brightened further by petitgrain's green citric snap. The neroli hasn't fully emerged yet, but you can sense its imminent arrival—that floral sweetness lurking just beneath the citrus's initial sparkle.
The neroli blooms fully now, joined by the subtle, creamy texture of iris and geranium's peppery complexity. The composition becomes distinctly floral and heady, almost perfume-like in its abstraction, whilst the oakmoss and animalic undertones begin their slow emergence from beneath, adding a disconcerting warmth that troubles the pretty florality.
The leather and oakmoss take command, supported by labdanum's amber-tinged sweetness and benzoin's vanilla-like warmth. The fragrance transforms into a soft, woody-leather base with only whispers of the original neroli remaining—a graceful, skin-like finish that suggests intimacy rather than projection.
Libertine Neroli announces itself as a paradox—simultaneously luminous and shadowed, refined yet deliberately unruly. The bergamot and petitgrain opening gleams with citric clarity, but this is no cheerful breakfast fragrance; there's something knowing in its brightness, an intelligence that resists innocence. Once the neroli emerges in the heart, the composition reveals its true nature: a heady, almost indolic floral that trades the clean abstractions of typical neroli fragrances for something considerably more carnal. The iris contributes a powdery, slightly creamy texture that softens the geranium's peppery green edges, whilst the oakmoss beneath begins its slow, insistent whisper.
What makes Libertine Neroli genuinely compelling is how Francesca Bianchi refuses to let her chypre settle into predictability. The animalic base—likely including costus or similar animalic materials—introduces a distinctly bodily warmth that complicates the florality. There's an almost sweaty sensuality here, a suggestion of skin and desire beneath the flowers. The labdanum and benzoin provide honeyed sweetness, but it's tempered by leather and that creeping oakmoss, which gradually dominates, transforming the composition into something closer to a leather-chypre hybrid.
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4.0/5 (110)