Santa Maria Novella

[Vienna]

I follow Mary Portas on Social Media and the other day she was talking about the perfume brand in the title. Out of curiosity I googled it and found their UK website. Has anybody tried any of their perfumes ? Mary Portas says she`s used one of them for years Acqua Della Regina and on her thread several other people mentioned how they`d visited the perfumery in Florence and how wonderful it is. I looked at buying a box of testers but the p and p was £7 on top of the £25 for the box of samples but it would be an expensive mistake if they don`t live up to the hype.
https://uk.smnovella.com/pages/story

 

[donna255]

Me!!

You can do a virtual tour of their Florence store. Which looks amazing.

I own two of their perfumes, Iris, which is a simple fragrance L'Iris is the modern version. A friend was going to Florence some years back, and I gave her a list of products I wanted. Soap, their soap is beautiful and so gentle their calendula cream and of course a bottle of perfume. I picked their carnation, and it is a real powerhouse spicy carnation.

OOPS! I also own Peau d'Espagne Spanish Leather in parfum form, it was a gift from a friend long ago.

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[donna255]

Sorry, had to go as blood tests at the doctors.

This is the Italian site showing the building

https://www.smn.it/en/
I am not impressed with the Sample set, none of the perfumes appeal to be me.

If you go to Basenotes and click on each perfume you will get reviews of people who actually tried or owned them.

https://basenotes.com/brands/santa-maria-novella.100766

 

[Vienna]

Thanks Donna. I`ll have a browse on Basenotes and Fragrantica. I have plenty of perfumes to be going on with, too many in fact but I`m a sucker for an old well established brand because I dislike most of the high street perfumes or celeb perfumes which tend to smell like air freshener or a fruit salad.
I`m a big fan of Houbigant perfumes and ashamed to admit that over the years I have spent a fortune on them but I keep going back to them time after time. I`ll bookmark Santa Novella and will probably return to them in either a moment of weakness or when I reach my last half a gallon of other smelly stuff .......... that could be a joke or maybe a reality lol !