Acqua di Sardegna
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Mint and juniper crack open the composition with herbal sharpness, whilst lavender and rosemary add a green, slightly resinous character that recalls wild Mediterranean hillsides rather than manicured gardens. The effect is bracing and unexpectedly fresh, almost medicinal in its clarity.
Oregano and patchouli transform the scent into something earthier and more ambiguous—the oregano lends a spicy, almost food-like warmth, whilst castoreum begins its insistent animalic presence, creating an intriguing tension between the culinary and the bodily. Carnation adds a dry, slightly peppery spice that prevents the composition from becoming cloying, though amber's resinous sweetness begins pooling beneath everything.
Oakmoss, cistus, and the fully-emerged castoreum dominate in these final hours, creating a dense, smoky, almost leathery base where the fragrance becomes genuinely challenging—faintly faecal, undeniably animalic, with caramel adding a burnt-sugar sweetness that feels more unsettling than comforting. The scent clings close to skin, becoming an intimate, slightly foul whisper rather than a projection.
Acqua di Sardegna presents itself as a deliberately unsettling fragrance—one that rejects the sanitised comfort of modern aromatic design. Miguel Matos has crafted something closer to a medieval apothecary's cabinet than a contemporary eau de cologne, despite the deceptive aquatic promise of its name.
The opening assault is herbaceous and medicinal: mint and juniper snap with an almost astringent clarity, joined by lavender and rosemary that smell less like a spa and more like the aromatics one might find in a Sardinian maquis scrubland—dusty, resinous, slightly threatening. But this is merely the threshold. What emerges from the heart is where Acqua di Sardegna reveals its true character: oregano and patchouli create an unexpected marriage of culinary warmth and earthy earthiness, whilst castoreum begins its creeping, animalic whisper from the base. This isn't a gentle whisper—the animalic accord registers at 100%, meaning the fragrance leans heavily into that faintly faecal, bodily richness that castoreum brings.
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4.3/5 (228)