Perfume Review: Lorenzo Villoresi Piper Nigrum

I realized that it has been a while since I talked about my comfort scents. And yet they deserve recognition and praise. They are there for me when I am cold, tired, lonely, grumpy and bothered. They don’t make life better, but they do make it more bearable. One of my relatively recently discovered comfort scents is Piper Nigrum by Lorenzo Villoresi. There is something about its spicy, creamy blend that never fails to soothe and calm me. This is a strange scent, warm and chilly at the same time. The pepper, with its dry, warm piquancy, is quite apparent, but the mint note is just as strong, stronger even at times (especially in the beginning), it acts as a “cooling agent” of sorts here, and I find this contrast of hot and cold to be extremely appealing. The minty accord also has a certain discreet sweetness that softens the composition, adding to it an unexpectedly creamy quality. When the mint subsides, the green-herbal spiciness of marjoram becomes evident, as well as the balsamic woodiness of styrax and the velvety warmth of myrrh. The constant interplay of the cold and the spicy-hot, of the dry and the creamy is bewitching, almost hypnotic. Like with some of my other comfort scents, Angelique Encens and Passage d’Enfer, the comfort that I find in Piper Nigrum is akin to detachment, disconnection from whatever it is that pains and troubles me. When I wear Piper Nigrum I feel, like Tsvetaeva’s Tsar-Devitsa, that Nowhere will you find me, I’m lost in no place. And nothing can catch me. And nothing returns me. Piper Nigrum is available at Aedes, $90.00 for 3.4oz. *The image is from Aedes.com.