Tirrenico

Tirrenico arrives as a bracing splash of Mediterranean coastline—all salt-spray immediacy and herbal conviction. Maria Candida Gentile constructs something deceptively straightforward: the bitter orange and bergamot emerge with genuine citrus bite rather than the typical sweetened candy approximation, immediately complicated by woody undertones that feel more mineral than aromatic. This isn't a fruity aquatic in the modern sense; the fruits in the heart read as something altogether more austere, almost herbal-green, threaded through with fennel's anise-like sharpness and a whisper of elemi's incense-tinged resin.

The aquatic accord (100% dominance in the composition) never wavers—there's a persistent ozonic quality that tethers everything to that sense of sun-warmed water and stone. But what prevents Tirrenico from dissolving into generic freshness is the basil and fennel interplay, which introduces a savoury, almost vegetative character that sits uneasily alongside the jasmine. Rather than harmonising into something floral and inviting, these elements create deliberate tension: you're caught between herbal tea and white flower, between botanical rigour and perfumery's softer impulses.