O’Driù Leva & Its Biblical Challenge

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Leva via Luckyscent.

An intersection of the ancient past and the modern present lies at the heart of Leva, a fragrance from the Italian niche house of O’Driù (henceforth spelled without the accent as plain “O’Driu”). It is an eau de parfum that was originally released in 2011 as part of The Genesis Collection, and is meant to represent Eve to Ladamo‘s Adam. To that end, it cleverly uses ingredients that go back thousands of years in history, including spikenard which the Bible says is the fragrant oil that Mary used to anoint Jesus’ feet. Leva is a challenging fragrance on my skin, particularly in the beginning, and I’m afraid I wasn’t up to the task.

French marigold or tagetes patula via Wikipedia.

Leva is an eau de parfum created by Angelo Orazio Pregoni. O’Driu has no description for Leva on its website at this time, but the press release file that I was sent provides the following notes:

Grapefruit, turmeric, lemongrass, jasmine, tagete [marigold], vetiver, jatamansi [spikenard], basil, lavender, ylang-ylang, vanilla, benzoin, tonka bean, and pepper. Continue reading →

O’Driù Ladamo: Mother Earth

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: Facebook page of Amazing Landscapes, Nature, Animals and Places

Close your eyes and imagine a landscape of burnt umber, red, green, and black where the ground is made of earthy patchouli and tobacco, the rivers run dark with burnt resins, green shrubs of vetiver and galbanum grow around sinewy trees made of black licorice, and the sky hangs heavy in a haze of terracotta red dust and amber. In the far distance, near marshes of wet, mushy amber, there is an ancient monastery. Its library is filled with ancient parchment paper made from pressed herbs and covered with the dust of ages. In its kitchens, the monks cook with dried fenugreek and curried immortelle, their aroma carrying on the wind to the rugged landscape outside. That is the world of Ladamo which takes the most organic aspects of Mother Earth, and puts it in a perfume bottle.

Continue reading →

O’Driù Eva Kant

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Kafkaesque

O’Driu press release image via Source: www.mangaforever.net

Perfume as modern art. That is both the goal and inspiration for many of O’Driù‘s creations, and Eva Kant is no exception. It is a fragrance intended to represent the most elusive, seductive woman in the world of (Italian) comics, the partner to Diabolik. I don’t read comic books, so I’m afraid the references go over my head, but I can tell you that the O’Driù line often accomplishes its goal as both modern perfumery and art. I think each one is highly original, extremely creative, and wholly transportative to a much more organic world centered around Nature, frequently in its purest, rawest sense.

I’ll be blunt and say that several of the perfumes are far too much like art for me to actually wear them for myself, but I respect their innovative nature enormously. All too often we bemoan the lack of uniqueness in the perfume world, the factory assembly-line nature of things put out by both big and small houses, but I doubt you’ll ever encounter anything that smells like an O’Driù perfume. Anywhere. Continue reading →

O’Driù comes to America!

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Kafkaesque

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.

Angelo Orazio Pregoni of O’Driu. Source: Basenotes

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.)

Angelo Orazio Pregoni via Fragrantica.

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. Continue reading →