Miu Miu l'Eau Bleue (Daniela Andrier for Prada, 2016)

Sometimes, the Perfume God gives you unexpected gifts. Sometimes they have a strange, difficult character, they seem to hold you wide... But since the first sniff you know there's something inside. You can not understand what it is and go on slamming your nose on it until you end up falling in love with it, even before the answer comes.

Miu Miu L'Eau Bleue is a fresh floral fragrance, based on lily of the valley. I kindly detest this note, and spring-y, blooming scents make me wrink, but well, I completely fell for this strange creature dressed in a pale blue silk gown singing with Kim Carnes's voice (if you don't know her,  click here and listen). 

Lily of the valley, rose, green notes, jasmine, hedione, white musk and a strange note called akigalawood create an unexpected cold, bitter, extra-dry, luminous, powerful, scent, standoffish like just few others. And brave, too: in an era of floral, sugary, overly musky, glitter-and-sequins perfumes, this one speaks another language. Miu Miu L'Eau Bleue features all the strange, funny, incredibly chic eccentricity of Prada Couture. And when a perfume reflects the values of its brand I feel the need to emphasize it.

The amazing thing is that the intensity of this fragrance grows over time, and after four-five  hours of spraying you find yourself wrapped up by a more powerful and interesting olfactory cloud than at the beginning. Perhaps it's due to this mysterious akigalawood, which I will definitely look for as soon as possible.

Daniela Andrier, the scent's creator, is a Master Perfumer I've been admiring for a long time: creative, bold, capable of abstract works like this (or Marni, one of the few feminines worthy of note in recent years), even close to unwearability, but also of exhilarating and immediately pleasant scents. Her works for Prada are a handbook of all the nuances with which scents can speak to people. There is not enough talk, or with enough admiration, about this extraordinary creator.