Maria Candida Gentile
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The top notes arrive with ceremonial weight—frankincense and myrrh hit first as a dry, slightly smoky cloud, immediately sharp with white pepper's peppercorn crispness. The saffron adds a subtle spiced earthiness that prevents the composition from feeling purely ecclesiastical, whilst labdanum threads through with unexpected sweetness.
As the resinous top notes settle, the rose emerges with ghostly restraint, its Turkish character lending a faintly animalic, almost leathery quality that plays against the woody undertones rising from the base. The saffron intensifies slightly, weaving between the floral and woody elements without ever allowing them to fully merge.
What remains is primarily woody and resinous—the benzoin and sandalwood create a warm, slightly sweet foundation that the lingering myrrh and frankincense smoke drift across like ghosts. The composition settles into something genuinely amber-tinged and meditative, all sharpness worn away.
Sideris is a fragrance that smells like entering a candlelit chapel after centuries of incense smoke have settled into the stone. Maria Candida Gentile has constructed something deliberately archaic—a composition that feels excavated rather than invented. The frankincense and myrrh open as a deliberate, almost liturgical gesture, their resinous bodies underpinned by white pepper's sharp crystalline bite and saffron's dusty, slightly medicinal warmth. What prevents this from becoming purely devotional is the labdanum, which introduces a honeyed amber sweetness that softens the incense's austere edges, creating tension between the sacred and the sensual.
The rose arrives not as a romantic flourish but as a muted, slightly papery presence—Turkish rose particularly, which carries an almost animalic depth rather than dewy freshness. It sits uneasily against the woody-smoky foundation, never quite reconciling with the resinous base notes. This is the scent's peculiar strength: it refuses coherence, instead offering a kind of beautiful friction between its competing personalities.
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3.7/5 (205)