We have been extraordinarily lucky with the weather this month: it has been unseasonably warm up until today. Today, it is cold. I am not ready for cold, but it does give me an excuse to reach for one of my favorite winter fragrances: Ambra del Nepal by the Italian apothecary line i Profumi di Firenze. The notes are amber, cardamom and vanilla.
Ambra del Nepal is probably the only amber fragrance I really adore. The amber smells pale rather than dark, but at the same time, it is deep, rich and resinous, with a whisper of dry incense smoke. It is sweet, but the smoke and a generous dash of cardamom temper the sweetness so that it never feels heavy or cloying, even as the vanilla intensifies on the dry down. It is one of very few ambers that doesn’t turn sour on my skin after an hour…
Like the others in the Hermessence line of fragrances (see 
