Late Autumn

 Black Heart by Fumerium

Autumn casts a particular aroma that hover slowly and lightly upon the city, especially at night, when the light left room for darkness and the haze thickens the chillness of the air.

  Humidity caress the chimneys, playing along with whirls of smoke forsaken by lazy bonfires. The wet floors, all covered in a carpet of yellow leaves shining in the moonlight, are dishevelled from now and then by a worker's quick-walk whose shadow moves swiftly through the naked trees hurrying back to the warm home or to a night shift. Every move around is taken in slow motion, the sounds are gradually muted until the silence buries the town into a mystery solved only by the daylight. It seems deserted as time stood still in a moment of peace that ends at dawn. All that's left in the night is the smell of smoke, light movements of leather jackets that crossed the road earlier in the night, pine-needles crushed under fast steps, woods covered in oakmoss that outcast a sweet-resinous fragrance and the past life of the now death roses. And quietness.

The Dark Side by Francesca Bianchi 

"I am not looking to escape my darkness, i am learning to love myself there." (Rune Lazuli)

Acknowledging one's dark side and learn to live with it, not from aside but from within, by accepting its existence, is the first step to self-discovery. 

It's not one of those scenes at the interactive theater, where the villain points at you in a scream that turns on a light right into your stupefied eyes while shame covers the cheeks in the same red that pumps into your head by the noisy cheers of a public that urge you to take the scene.

The Dark Side is real. Its acting wins several Oscars before realizing that is the final round of applause that count, and most of all, the silence between each act... the respect, the admiration, the love. The good. Dark and light must always find a equilibrium, consensually complete each other and consciously serve the same purpose - one's growth and love for self, as a preamble for emphaty, tolerance and love for the others. 

The Dark Side takes dark and makes it human. Francesca gave it richness, character and balance by combining opposite elements such as honey dripped from styrax and iris that covers a soft layer of castoreum and piercing woods. Sweetness overflows from within with an ambery warmth that melts into cold as incense spreads its smoke in short whiffs. Facets of powder lipstick, antique shops and earthy-shades play together and mix as one. It most definitely smells like humanity, both dark and light. 

Anonimo Veneziano by Nobile 1942 

When sweet gets another meaning and translate to the fine line between classic and grandmother's closet. That's where Anonimo Veneziano by Nobile 1942 and its closed smell fit in. It opens the door to an old armoire, used as personal retreat, where i loved to hide when the grown-ups world was too much for me. I've found comfort in it the times my little head got dizzy from watching and listening from the bottom up dialogs i didn't understand.

  Its warm scent of stale and fur coats was distorted for moments by the musty muskiness impregnated in their long sleeves covered once in fragrance, orange candies hidden in old pockets and patchouli oil used as deodorizer to mask odors ("No hipppie, that's a bad hippie. Patchouli is not a shower!"). Anonimo Veneziano has a classic elegance that i rarely came across in the contemporary style of perfume making. Its fragrance is rich, sweet and dark in an old fashioned way that gets lost a in mystery unsolved by the new world.