Farmacia SS. Annunziata: Hyle

"Primary matter, vital scent, salt of Life.

Top notes: lemon, bergamot, myrtle
Middle notes: lavender, ginger, ozone notes
Base notes: oamkoss notes, juniper wood, patchouli"

So says the brochure. Another bag of sticky goo - I must say that I prefer the good ole vials. The first impression is pretty pungent bergamot but in a while, the scent develops; as with Chia, the citruses are not very prominent and they only stick out from time to time. In a while, the scent gets very sweet and sort of minty, I suspect the myrtle (not a common ingredient, I'd say, outside the incensey realm of fragrances). It totally doesn't develop in a linear way, there's a sinus curve of notes appearing and receding. At first, I would say that the citruses are done with in the first five minutes, giving way to mint hard candies and another while later, the fresh and pungent scent changes to slightly soapy - it's maybe my impression only but I often read citruses as soap. After yet another while, myrtle, ginger and juniper wood overflow everything only to give way to ozone and lavender and citruses again... and o it goes forever
Now, something has been kicking my shin for quite a while, some long buried impression... this smell reminds me of my childhood holidays in today's Croatia - sunlit coast (the perceptible saltiness of bergamot and ozone combine) with wild lavender and junipers and dry grass and pine needles and the pungency of salty breeze, in the happy time when I didn't have any allergies to mar my joy of being outside in the sun. And, that indefinable sort of soap that probably isn't produced anymore and which places the impression to sometime 25 years ago, not here and now, among cypresses and lemons of Tuscany. It's rather cloudy and grey in Tuscany at the moment and this fragrance brings sun. Lots of it, and those rugged clouds and clear blue sky that look so good on landscape photographs.
Hyle is marketed in 100ml bottles of eau de parfum; I would add a bottle of alcohol and dilute it to lots of cologne to pour all over. Irreverent, maybe, but very suitable for hot summer.