Giardini di Toscana
Release Date – 2019
Top Notes
Heart Notes
Base Notes
Pink Pepper
Bergamot
Clary Sage
Cashmeran
Ambroxan
Ambrettolide
Vetiver
Rosso Radice by Giardini Di Toscana is a vegetal, aromatic medley that I can only think to describe as green. A very insistent green, evoking crushed leaves, citrus peel, and stems snapped between soil-clad fingers.
It came into my possession as a free sample. The only thing I knew about the house beforehand was their gourmand darling Bianco Latte, which seemed to plague the internet for most of last year.
I had seen men and women, old and young, rave about Bianco for months. Its suggestion was everywhere, and everyone seemed to like it.
So when this new fragrance came along from the same house, I was expecting something equally agreeable. A crowd-pleaser. Something sweet and generic that didn’t push the olfactory boat too far.
How very wrong I was.
First Impressions
Upon first spray, I was met with an immediate slap of citrus. No gentle introductions here. The bergamot arrived all at once, dragging a very loud green leaf in behind it.
Even though bergamot is technically an orange, what I actually smelled was something closer to lemon balm. Obnoxiously herbal and medicinal, it echoed the scent of cold and flu remedies. Which is ironic, because I suspect this could just as easily cause a headache as cure one.
It reminded me of rubbing a mint leaf between thumb and forefinger, that sudden, sharp release of green, bitter freshness.
Although this is something I’m trying to move past in my appreciation of perfume, this quality made the scent feel aggressively masculine. The lemon peel and crushed foliage I seemed to be picking up took my mind deep into aftershave territory.
I longed for a musk or powdery accord to sweep in and change the scene, but the thick rinded, green-pulped facets remained.
I was dealing with a chypre.
How Many Peppers Do You Take In Your Tea?
Once I had recovered from the initial herbaceous blow, the more rounded notes began to make an appearance.
The citrus had calmed down somewhat, although it never fully fades in this composition, and I began to notice something dry and grassy, almost hay-like. This was the vetiver.
Cashmeran and ambroxan soon followed, fusing together in a heady medley that drew associations of chamomile tea. In this fictitious cup, the teabag was spiked with straw and boiled in a bubbling pot of black pepper.
Upsettingly raw and unprocessed.
Eau de Garden Centre
The compounding of these organic notes with little sweetness to round them out soon evolved my domestic tea scene into an unruly forest, dense with trees heavy with orange, yellow, and green fruits.
I began to feel like I was traipsing through trunks and trees, batting their yield from my face while trying to steady a sip of lemon balm from a pocket flask.
That said, I don’t completely hate it. In fact, I can imagine there would be a small pleasure in wearing this and catching occasional zippy, green whiffs throughout the day.
It’s the sort of fragrance that would certainly wake you up and put a bit of purpose into your walk. Wherever you were headed, you’d feel quite brisk about getting there.
However, I do feel I could achieve a similar experience by taking a handful of mint leaves, some citrus peel, and a few blades of grass into a pestle and mortar. While this ground paste wouldn’t apply well, I’m sure the resulting scent wouldn’t be a million miles off.
The Redemption
On a very big but, this scent does mellow after its screechy beginning. The longer it warmed on my skin, the more I began to reconsider my initial verdict.
The dry-down brought an unexpected creaminess and musk, shifting the scent from eucalyptus-doused hay to something resembling a reed-diffuser-filled spa reception – fragrant steam hanging in the air, massage oil warming on skin, heat rising from wooden sauna benches, etc.
All in all, Rosso Radice was fun to sample. I’m glad it passed through my life, even if only briefly and in vial form.
5 and a half sniffs out of ten.
On That Note 
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