Francesca Bianchi Sex and The Sea Neroli (2019) +Sunkissed Skin Draw

August 21, 2019August 21, 2019

digital art by Elena

One of the most enjoyable and memorable aromas of summer vacation is surely the scent of your own skin, slightly tanned, covered with traces of dried sea salt, suntan lotion, and stolen kisses. This was the idea behind the perfume Francesca Bianchi Perfumes Sex and The Sea released in 2016, suggesting “the wild intimacy of an erotic encounter at the seaside“.

Image by Unsplash©

Then came Sex and the Sea Neroli (2019), moving from “wild“ into “romantic“, from erotic encounter“ to “making love”, the traces of sweat on skin begin to glow. This is not a typical marine, aquatic perfume, and yet it paints vivid intimate impressions of a beach side atmosphere with its bitter-salty, creamy-sweet, mimosa-fuzzy, iris-powdery, sensual, and carnal facets, while still remaining refined and elegant. Just a few wearings and memories resurface quickly: my first flirtations and romantic Summer flings atthe seaside.

Kisses in the dark, under pine trees, hair and skin still salty and sticky with suntan-oil, and as I remember it was Coppertone. There was no pollution back then, and the stars were our flashlights. Explaining fresh pine tar stuck in my hair? Difficult. It smelled great for days until my mom had to cut it out, we lost patience while trying to remove it with olive oil – and that didn’t smell great at all on 35+C and in direct sunlight. Since my hair gets all curled up with seawater, that wasn’t tragic. Cutting out that young man from my life was. Salty tears followed..

phot via Unsplash©

Skinny-dipping alone after midnight, with a myriads of plankton glowing softly like liquid silver all around you while a Perseid meteor shower shoots across the sky in mid-August. Unmistakably erotic, ritually repeated each Summer.

Francesca Bianchi from Francesca©

Francesca started playing with the original concept of Sex and The Sea simply because – she could. It’s definitely not just about having some neroli added to the original formula: however playful the initial idea “I’ll-do-it-‘cause-I-can-and let’s see what happens” was, Francesca had to recalibrate, rethink and re-do. She admits that the “anti-snobbish idea” of making a flanker turned out to be a completely new project, starting to live its own life.

Sex and The Sea and Sex and Sex and The Sea Neroli are like two sisters: their head, heart, and body share similar traits, but their personalities are so different. The younger sibling Sex and Sex and The Sea Neroli (let’s call her SSN) is overall brighter, a fragrant mosaic of lights and shadows, sun-kissed sweetness with addictive traces of skin-close saltiness, and suggestions of deep, carnal yearning under the surface.

image from Unsplash©

Its glowing opening is a tidal wave of bitter-sweet, almost medicinal bergamot with rich honeyed tones and hues of dry, hay-like immortelle. As this first wave rolls over you, a contrast of creamy, milky coconut and soft, powdery mimosa arises, underlined with green, fresh and aromatic sparkles of neroli. Instead of cooling you down, this stage feels like the shadier side of fragrance is pulling you deeper in, crawling under your suntanned skin. The overall feeling becomes denser, smoother and calmer: traces of coconut are rolling under and fading away as new layers rise, bringing forward that beautiful, dreamy and powdery Bianchi-specific iris, gently and deliberately undressing you in slow motion as the rhythm of the fragrance slows down.

Francesca Bianchi Sex and The Sea Neroli used with permission from Francesca

The warm and deep sensuality is now bathing in a salty-skin aftertaste with ambergris accords, colored sweet by labdanum and adding that specific musky-comfortable radiance and tenacity. Ambergris rolls over dominantly for quite a while, its crisp saltiness looming over layers that run much deeper. Velvety and seductive rivers of almost romantic tenderness define the dry down of Sex and Sex and The Sea Neroli… no words exchanged, no promises made, yet everything can happen.

Wearing Francesca Bianchi’s fragrances trigger diving deeper into inner oceans of emotions and introspective examinations of personal sexuality. Her perfumes get under your skin, nestle in your mind – without taking you over. They tend to become a part of you and for me they are an extension of my personality.

Summer is beginning to fade away and it is the perfect time to wear Francesca Bianchi Sex and The Sea Neroli. Spray it on where you’d like to be kissed.

Notes: Bergamot, Petitgrain, Honey , Neroli , Mimosa, Coconut, Immortelle, Rose , Iris, Sandalwood , Vetiver, Labdanum, Benzoin, Ambergris, Vanilla, Civet

Disclaimer: The sample of Francesca Bianchi Sex and The Sea Neroli was graciously given to me by Francesca Bianchi during Esxence Milan 2019, opinions and feelings of my own

Guest Contributor Elena Cvjetkovic, The Plum Girl

Discovery Kit of all seven of Francesca’s perfumes

Thanks to Francesca Bianchi we have draw for a registered CaFleureBon reader for the EU, AUSTRALIA, USA and Canada for a sample set of all Francesca Bianchi Perfumes including the new Sex and The Sea Neroli. To be eligible please leave a comment with what you enjoyed about Elena’s Sex and The Sea Neroli review, where you live and if you have a favorite Francesca Bianchi perfume. Draw closes 8/25/2019

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