Blu Mediterraneo : Cipresso di Toscana (original)
Acqua di Parma (1999)

A herbal-citrus blast greets me: lemon, petitgrain and grapefruit - more ripe pink grapefruit- mines with a lot of basil, clary sage and a large dose of rosemary. Most importantly, I get the cypress from the start, and it is a well-made lovely cypress impression indeed.

In the drydown Inget a touch of spiciness - think cardamom with coriander, but the gist is a floral basket that is dominated by a dark green jasmine impression. A good lashing of muguet and a traditional lavender are also present, arms are the occasional whiff of oleander. A pine note also arises, which blends with the cypress that is lingering on until the end anyway.

The base, continuing the pine and as cypress, adds a modicum of cedarwood, but it also develops a soft patchouli that blends in nicely with a rather smooth oakmoss that lacks as any sharpness on me. The base is darker in character, with only a glowing vetiver adding a brighter glimpse but without any earthy component.

I get moderate sillage, very good projection and seven hours of longevity on my skin.

This scent for warm autumn days is a complex composition that is far from the original Colonia concept of this House, but after the very first Colonia they launched more than a hundred years ago it is one of the most convincing products of Acqua di Parma. Not only is the cypress quite beautiful, the pine is not to much of a Pine-o-clean on me, and most of the other ingredients are of a high quality and they are blended beautifully without losing structure. A few generic moments cannot distract from the overall positive impression. 3.75/5.

I get strong rosemary I notice in Cool Water and basil which dominate the citrus. After awhile the floral and lavender kick in. The pine is ever present and eventually the other woods show up. It's a pass for me. The people who would like this the most would be into sport scents. This is the kind of thing I would smell in the locker-room.

Clean and gentle fresh cologne. A bit anonymous - and frankly also a bit "toilet freshener" - but you may take it as "understated". Totally un-worthy the price tag.

5/10

I can fully understand why some people would hate this - the opening of this now discontinued fragrance is pure pine fresh toilet cleaner. If you can hang on for 5 minutes until the loud initial blast of pine wears off you are left with a wonderful citrus, basil and salty Mediterranean cypress smell that is very light and summery as well as smoky, with medium longevity of a few hours (which is much longer than the rest of this range!!) Shame it was discontinued as lovers of pine scents (like me) will really dig this stuff, it smells like walking through scorching hot pine trees on a sun baked mediterranean island..

If you can find it the also discontinued body wash of Cipresso di Toscana is wonderful too

Pros: one of the purest pine scents around
Cons: can smell like toilet cleaner"

A woody lavender very reminiscent of 80s scents like Drakkar Noir. Nicely made and deserves its fan base, but the opposite of unique.

A woody smoky Duchoufour masterpiece worthy of the CDG Incense collection hiding away in a dusty corner of the Acqua Di Parma line, Cipresso di Toscana never really makes the big best-of lists or comes up in conversations about Avignon and Timbuktu and the great modern wood scents, though it should.

The cypress note is fantastic. I have no idea how it's done, but I smell hawthorn, like yellow wood burnished with honey, spectacularly displayed for once without its omnipresent 80's chypre buddies. There's that Sables immortelle that smells like smoky maple syrup, and a dark pine, bordering on leathery, that mostly hides in the background providing darkness and only occasionally shooting out a tendril of dark forest smell.

There's also the dark smoky sweet rubber of Fahrenheit or Bulgari Black, as well a fantastic campfire oud that reminds me of Kilian's excellent Pure Oud and even a pinch of vanilla that never feels gourmand, but instead adds a sense of richness to everything.

Sillage and longevity are great. It should be said that, with all the different smells I've listed here, Cipresso di Toscana actually forms a cohesive whole and smells like its own unique thing more so than all the notes I'm listing. It just shoots out constantly shifting sillage that goes from note to note and theme to theme, always keeping me entertained.