Sex and the Sea Neroli, Francesca Bianchi

Nymps in Greek mythology are inferior deities or supernatural beings associated with water, seas, woods or air; young beautiful women, divine spirits protective of Nature depicted in many works of art, in mythology or literature and divided in various types upon the places they live(d), away from humans, - Nereides (seas), Hesperides or Atlantides (evenings and sunsets), Oceanids or Naiads (water), Dryads and Hamadryads (trees and forests), Aurai (winds) and Alseids (groves and glens). They are often linked to Gods as their daughters, lovers or mothers.

Naiads, nymphs of water - rivers, steams, lakes, fountains and marshes, draw strength from the waters they lived in by absorbing its magical qualities. Towns were named in honor of the Naiad that offered it a source of fresh water. A Naiad can either cure with water or it can unleash her anger over waters when provoked.
They were, with help from the goddess Artemis, protectors of young girls overseeing their safe transition from child to adult. Sometimes they play with humans` minds as a distraction from their occupied lives.

Diver Terry Steeley picture published on Daily Mail. 

When i first smelled Francesca's Sex and the Sea i felt my cheeks blushing and my chest pulsating like a tabu subject was unexpectedly put down on the table in front of me and i had to immediately deal with it. It felt almost erotic and forbidden. 

Images of debauchery, shamelessness and hedonism were addictively haunting my thoughts to an audacious level of enjoyment. Like Nymps would have taken my territory in an excess of fury poisoning the waters of my (relatively) decent mind with pleasure. A temptation i slowly succumbed to.

Sex and the Sea Neroli came to follow its precursor`s steps, as Francesca`s guilty pleasure, into a world of change and confusion, marked by the same constants but with a slightly different trajectory because Sex and the Sea and Sex and the Sea Neroli are not that different afterwards. Like day and... later that day. 

With SSN, Naiads seems to be leading me back and forth between the age of innocence and the adulthood curing the original`s sins with a significant amount of neroli that plays between the duality of its symbolism - sexual purity and seduction / innocence and fertility. A bride used to proclaim her virgity with orange blossom in her hair / Madrid`s women of the night wore neroli to lure their clients into the game of carnal pleasures.
SSN is more calmed than SS, brighter, airier, almost uncorrupted and more romantic, beautifully unfolding all of neroli`s facets over the same seductive core of civet and addictive saltiness. Its sweetness is kept in balance by soft mimosa and daring immortelle, but considerably reduced compared to the original due to the elimination of the pinnaple accord and the over-tropical coconut whose creamy qualities are left in the background as a support with its vanilic aspects to other vanilla smelling resins and spices. 
It gradually loses its ways into a ligher version of SS whose shadows never leave SSN`s light. 

Sex and the Sea Neroli (aka SSN) can be found on Francesca Bianchi Perfumes website at 98 euro / 30ml Extrait de Parfum.