I love sushi and am an avid proselytizer when trying to get those reluctant to try eating raw fish to let me guide them through it. The one thing I warn all of them is my favorite final piece of any sushi outing is something only for those who really like sushi. I order sea urchin in a hand roll topped with a raw quail’s egg. The overall texture of this as sea urchin, or uni as it is called in Japanese, is very soft can be challenging. Combine this with the smell of fresh sea urchin which has a strong iodine component along with a distinct briny smell. I love the smell of fresh uni it feels like the living ocean to me. I can honestly say I never expected to find it in a perfume but now I have in the new Medittorosa Sogno Reale.
Stefania Squeglia
Stefania Squeglia is the owner and creative director at Medittorosa. Sogno Reale is the perfumed realization of a dream Sig.ra Squeglia had. She asked perfumer Amelie Bourgeois to create a fragrance which evoked her dream the trio of smells Mme Bourgeois had to work with was lemon, sea urchin, and leather. Sogno Reale has the feeling of a waking dream full of seeming contradictions which somehow make sense when lost in the subconscious.
Amelie Bourgeois
Sogno Reale opens with that lemon as brilliant as you will find in a perfume. It provides stark contrast to the uni accord which Mme Bourgeois forms from iodine and ozonic notes. This captures that smell of fresh ocean and something living precisely. It is a very odd combination but it works for me. It is going to be too weird for some. If you can find something to enjoy, the next phase as Mme Bourgeois constructs her leather accord makes it worth it. First patchouli is used to lead into an unrefined leather accord. Mme Bourgeois takes olibanum, styrax, hyraceum, and sandalwood. This leather accord has a primitive quality to it. That matches the remainder of the uni accord perfectly. Very late in the drydown there is a boozy shimmering finish around rum and amber.
Sogno Reale has 8-10 hour longevity and very little sillage.
I always want perfume brands to take chances and Sig.ra Squeglia has done that with Sogno Reale. Like my finishing dish at the sushi restaurant Sogno Reale is not for those who like their perfumes safe. Sogno Reale is for the perfume lover who truly wants to try something very different. Sogno Reale is that kind of perfume. I was not able to wear it on a really hot day where I think it might be at its best. I did wear it on a trip to the beach and to the sushi restaurant afterwards. As I got ready to take a bite of my uni hand roll a slight whiff of it rose from my wrist. It was a perfect combination of two forms of uni.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Medittorosa.
–Mark Behnke
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