I’m happy to report that the avant-garde Italian line, O’Driù, will be arriving shortly at Luckyscent. It is the first time that O’Driù (hereinafter spelled simply as “O’Driu” without the accent) will be available in America.

For those of you who have never heard about the line, O’Driu is a small Italian niche company founded in 2010 as part of a project by the Pleasure Factory, a specialty communications company. All of O’Driu’s fragrances are made by Angelo Orazio Pregoni, who I find to be a truly fascinating chap. I wrote a little bit about him in my review of the bespoke fragrance, Peety, and about how sincerely he seems to believe in a more experimental, avant-garde approach to perfumery. A bohemian, intellectual, mad scientist who likes to think outside the box and who has a rather wicked sense of humour, if you will. (I still laugh when I think of his bio page on the O’Driu website.)

His creations are highly original, extremely concentrated, and almost purely all-natural. Many feel like extraits more than eau de parfums, and most have something like 96% fragrance oils, absolutes, or essentials. Some of the note lists include lyrical descriptions that are almost more like poetry than something you’d normally find in a perfume pyramid. One perfume, for example, Leva is said to include: “the nightmare that reveals the pleasure,” “a smell in the wood,” or, simply, “under the sun.” What is under the sun, I have no idea. (Also, I’m dying to know what note is symbolized by “a bath in the water,” which is supposedly one of the notes in the super-rich, tobacco, earthy, vetiver, licorice scent called Ladamo.) Whatever the actual ingredients turn out to be, I fully expect they will add to the unexpectedness of the fragrance bouquet. Since I wrote about Peety, I’ve had the chance to try a few more of Mr. Pregoni’s perfumes, and I can tell you that they are full of surprises.

I got news the other day that Luckyscent will carry O’Driu next week, starting roughly on the 4th of July weekend. The Beverly Hills boutique and website will have six of the fragrances, including several of the early releases that were previously limited-editions. The specific fragrances in question are: Peety, Eva Kant, Ladamo, Leva, Linfedele Haiku, and Supercilium. All are eau de parfums, though the ones that I’ve tried thus far consistently feel like the densest Extraits imaginable. I believe all of them are available only in 50 ml bottles. Prices will range from $210 for Peety and Eva Kant, to $255 for Leva, Ladamo and Linfedele Haiku, and $380 for Supercilium.

Franco of Luckyscent has been kind enough to send me samples of all of the above, and I will spend the next week testing them out. I’ll be posting far more infrequently than usual as a result. In the meantime, however, I’d like to share with you some of the notes, artwork, or descriptions for each of the 6 perfumes. As a side note, those of you who are gutless cowards like myself when it comes to the … er… “personalisation” issue raised by Peety may be happy to know that all the other fragrances are presented “as is,” with no need for any further… additions. So, without further ado, here are the O’Driu fragrances coming to America.

PEETY:

Though I have written a full review of Peety, I’ll just post the notes here for the sake of completeness, so that all the new Luckyscent arrivals will be described in one place. Peety is an animalic, spicy oriental centered primarily on honeyed tobacco with tonka and amber, but the full note list includes:

Rose, jasmine, patchouli, tobacco, pink pepper, litchen or tree moss, tonka vanilla, bitter orange, mandarin, cinnamon, castoreum, amber, and sandalwood.

You can read more about it in the review linked up above.

EVA KANT:

Eva Kant is an oriental with citric, floral, and herbal elements. O’Driu describes the perfume and its notes as follows:

Eva Kant via O’Drui website.

“EVA KANT il profumo” is like a captivating dark story: it’s introduced by the bitter and pungent grapefruit notes, then tamed by the gentler lavender ones, and then by damp woods. After the first feelings, one wants to get to the heart, but it needs to capitulate to Eva, to follow her, blinded and bonded, in her numberless coverts.
Only giving up to her, indulging in her lethal fascination, we can discovery another fragment of Eva’s obscure world: something exposed by mystical myrrh, hot sandalwood, spicy ginger. Magnolia and Ylang-Ylang hide themselves behind this alchemy. At last, our nose and our mind are spirited away by the roman chamomile, are inebriated and seduced by cardamom, entangled by the vanilla. Then, benzoin frees us from the blindfold, living us back a magnificent “vision”.

Notes: grapefruit, lavender, woods, myrrh, sandalwood, ginger, magnolia, ylang-ylang, chamomile, cardamom, vanilla & benzoin

LADAMO:

O’Driu describes Ladamo very simply on its website: “15 essences, hand treated. The world from the beginning, inside and outside us.” So, I thought I would share with you O’Driu’s note list, as well as a photo I took of the sample with its pretty artwork card comes with it:

LEVA:

There is no description for Leva on O’Driu’s website, so I’ll share the note list, as well as a photo I took of the sample that you’d get if you ordered from Luckyscent:

LINFEDELE HAIKU:

On its website, O’Driu describes Linfedele Haiku and its notes as follows:

8 essences hand treated.
The endless echo of Alchimia di Profumo.

Notes: castoreum, incense, broad bean, geranium, black pepper, pine-needles, grapefruit, vanilla, cardamom, angelica, myrrh, patchouli, coffee, yerba mate, and barley.

The artwork and sample card look like this:

SUPERCILIUM:

Supercilium is a study in vetiver, though there are other notes as well. There is no description for the perfume on O’Driu’s website, perhaps because it was a 2012 creation that, I believe, was issued in limited fashion. However, O’Driu provided Luckyscent with a cool artwork description that yields some clues. For example, there are references to Jatmansi, benzoin, pepper, coffee, incense, and vanilla. Other words like mimosa and lavender appear to be crossed out, however, so that leaves a bit of a mystery. I will leave it to you to take a look, and guess at what the complete note list may be:

All, in all, it’s an interesting line-up with some mysterious elements, no? I’m slowly working my way through them all, but it’s going to take some time as O’Driu fragrances last a long time on my skin.

I can tell you thus far that those who love tobacco scents with earthiness, spiciness and something resembling a profound coffee or expresso note will love Ladamo. And Eva Kant is one of the most unusual fragrances that I’ve tried in a while. It has a truly heavy and moist magnolia note, in addition to lemongrass, ginger, chamomile, vanilla, and herbal facets. It’s going to take me a few more days to wrap my head around it, in fact, especially as my skin seems to be creating some unusual gourmand nuances at times. (One minute, it makes me think of various iced cakes, and the next, it’s a completely different scent!)

All of this is going to be keeping me rather busy over the next week, so I may be rather quiet in the meantime. I hope to have two reviews for you before Luckyscent launches the line sometime over the 4th of July long weekend, with the other posts following thereafter. I also hope to get to reviews of some other interesting fragrances in the near future, including the new Corsica Furiosa from Parfum d’Empire, Maria Candida Gentile‘s Noir Tropical, Givenchy‘s Ambre Tigre from the Atelier Collection, Christopher Street from Charenton Macerations, and Masque Milano‘s Tango. Given my testing process and the length of my reviews, it may take a little time for me to get through that list, and the schedule may well change, but you can be sure to see a lot more O’Driu in the days to come.

Finally, I know this post has the greatest relevance for American readers but, if you are located elsewhere, you can turn to O’Driu’s Bestsellers page where 5 of these 6 fragrances are offered. [Update: a friend told me how to navigate the extremely complicated O’Driu website which is not straightforward at all to find their complete perfume range. After a lot of perambulation, I located the full e-store which does have all six of the perfumes discussed here, and many more. Scroll down to the end of the page for Supercilium as the full list is long, and some of the much earlier limited-edition fragrances are not in stock.] Unfortunately, the only samples available are for Peety and Eva Kant. So, if you’re interested in trying the rest and avoiding a blind buy, your best bet may be to order from Luckyscent as well.