Lily focused perfumes have always been a problem for me. If you smell a living lily it is a wonderfully complex smell coming from the bloom. Too many perfumes go for a stripped down version which becomes a washed out version of the real thing more appropriate for the funeral home. This has become so common my eye probably begins to twitch when I start reading a description of a new lily perfume. So it was when I received the press release in advance of the new Laboratorio Olfattivo MyLO.
Roberto Drago
As I waited for the perfume to catch up to the e-mailed press release I thought that Laboratorio Olfattivo creative director Roberto Drago is not one to follow the crowd. If there is a trademark to Laboratorio Olfattivo it is that Sig. Drago asks some of the best young perfumers to work with him. This more often than not provides a fragrance that takes risks. One thing that had me excited to try MyLo was the perfumer Sig. Drago asked to compose it, Luca Maffei. Sig. Maffei has had an incredibly creative 18 months impressing me at nearly every turn. I should have been aloft with anticipation instead my eye was twitching.
Luca Maffei
The press release told me that the name came from Sig. Drago calling the fragrance My Laboratorio Olfattivo which was shortened to MyLO. I have had the opportunity to meet Sig. Maffei quite a bit over the last year. One quality that I like is he becomes quite passionate about the perfumes he makes. Every creative director who works with him comments on his drive to produce something special. Sig. Maffei leaps fearlessly into his designs.
Two Calla Lily on Pink (1928) by Georgia O'Keeffe
When I finally smelled MyLO I was more than pleased, I was amazed. When it comes to lilies my frame of reference isn’t the chill of the funeral parlor. It is the deep colors and lines of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of calla lilies. When I would stand in front of these in a museum I didn’t smell the wan polite lily. I would smell a lily holding the natural spice of the pollen on its pistil thrusting out from the middle of the petals. The creamy lines of those petals on the canvas don’t smell polite they promise carnality. Sig. Maffei does this with MyLO.
The early going of MyLO is pretty standard citrus and baie rose. This has become the opening to so many perfumes lately the first moments were not promising. The floral heart warms things up. The lily is there fairly quickly rising from out of the citrus. It is beautifully demure until Sig. Maffei uses three other floral notes to create something much more realistic. An indolic jasmine adds a bit of an animalic growl to things. A spicy rose provides the natural spice that the pollen of the real thing provides. Finally, a fully powdery orris acts as if that pollen has transformed to a sweet cloud. This floral accord is so accomplished and balanced. On the days I wore MyLO it was so good I stopped often throughout the day to enjoy it. In the base Sig. Maffei uses benzoin and vanilla to give a sweetly resinous foundation.
MyLO has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
MyLO is immediately one of my favorite lily perfumes. There are so few perfumes which embrace the spicy sexy quality of lily that MyLO stands out for that reason. This goes with Daimiris and Kashnoir as the best this very good brand has produced. If you are tired of cleaned up near-sterile lilies MyLO will offer a different perspective.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Laboratorio Olfattivo.
–Mark Behnke
