Nasomatto
Narcotic V
The Story
Narcotic V. came out of research into the overwhelming, addictive force of feminine seduction. As with everything Gualtieri signs, the formula is withheld and the effect is left to make the argument.
White Floral
The flowers you smell across a garden
Jasmine and tuberose share it: thick creamy petals with a ripe, almost animal sweetness underneath, the indole that keeps big florals from ever smelling polite. Green at the edges, overripe fruit in the middle, and louder on warm skin.
Tuberose
creamy white petals, heady and carnal
A creamy white flower, intensely sweet, with a mentholated, almost rubbery, faintly meaty undertone. It is carnal rather than pretty, the kind of bloom that fills a room and stays there after you leave it.
Animalic
Skin, fur and something not quite tame
A raw, body-warm muskiness that reads of skin, hair and fur, sometimes sweet and powdery, sometimes sharp and faintly feral. At its best you cannot tell where the perfume stops and the wearer starts. At its strongest, it is the reason some people back away.
Tuberose
Carnal white flower that opens after dark
What it is
Cut a tuberose and it carries on. The waxy white flower keeps making scent for hours after picking, which is why perfumers once laid blossoms on trays of cold fat to catch it. Solvents do that job now.
How it smells
Creamy and buttery, with a cool mentholated snap on top and green sap beneath. Stay with it and something almost fleshy surfaces, warm and indolic, faintly clove-spiced. This is the flower people call too much.
In perfumery
It sits in the heart and pushes outward, three-dimensional in a way few florals manage. Gardenia, jasmine, orange blossom and coconut round it off. The great tuberose soliflores are still the benchmark everyone else is measured against.
Good to know
Six to eight thousand kilos of fresh flowers go into one kilo of absolute. Picture a field, then a small bottle. That ratio is why tuberose sits among the most costly florals in perfumery.
Jasmine
The heady white flower at perfumery's beating heart
What it is
Picking runs by hand in the dark, from before first light into the morning. The blossoms are too fragile to distill, so solvent lifts their oil into a waxy concrete, and alcohol washes the absolute out of that.
How it smells
Sweet, heavy and honeyed, with something faintly animal underneath. Sambac reads green, tea-like and luminous; grandiflorum is fruitier, creamier, heavier on the skin. Both dry down warm and soft, with a mushroomy musk you notice only up close.
In perfumery
Put it in the heart and it ties a citrus opening to the woods underneath, adding volume to both. Rose, tuberose, sandalwood and musk all take it well. Plenty of perfumes are built on jasmine and nothing else.
Good to know
Roughly six thousand hand-picked blossoms go into one gram of absolute, among the costliest materials in perfumery. Part of its depth is indole, which smells like decay when concentrated and turns radiant at the trace the flower carries.
Lily
Cool white trumpet, peppery under the pollen
What it is
The true lilies, genus Lilium: big trumpet flowers like Casablanca and stargazer that scent a whole room. Squeeze them and you get nothing usable, so the note is rebuilt from headspace readings taken off the living bloom.
How it smells
Cool and creamy white floral with a green, waxy edge and an unexpected peppery lift. A watery transparency sits on top of something honeyed underneath, warmed by pollen. It falls between tuberose lushness and the cool of magnolia.
In perfumery
A heart note that gives a bouquet volume without weight, opening it up rather than filling it in. It runs with rose, freesia, magnolia, green notes and soft musks, and carries lily soliflores on its own.
Good to know
Lily of the valley, muguet, is a different plant entirely and also a reconstruction, so two notes called lily can smell nothing alike. One is a trumpet. The other is a stem of tiny bells.
Spices
A warm drawer of dried seeds and bark
What it is
Everything in this family was dried before it was useful: bark, seed, bud, root, berry. Clove and cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg, cardamom and ginger, each one steamed or pressed until the heat comes out as oil.
How it smells
Dry heat first, then the differences: pepper and ginger prickle, cinnamon goes sweet and woody, clove lands with that dark medicinal bite. Underneath, something resinous and faintly bitter. It rounds out as it warms on skin.
In perfumery
Spice is friction. A pinch in the heart keeps a citrus opening from going polite and stops an amber base from going syrupy, which is why it sits so often beside rose, tobacco and woods.
Good to know
Nutmeg grew on one small cluster of islands in the Banda Sea and nowhere else, which made it and clove worth enough to launch fleets and start wars. Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam took a cut of every pound.
Fragrance Character
It opens with tuberose at full volume, waxy and indolic, the jasmine threading underneath with a honeyed, almost carnal weight. The spices give it friction, keeping the lily from softening the composition into sweetness. As it settles, it draws closer to the skin, becoming something more intimate and bodily than floral.
Longevity
how long it stays on skin
The hourglass reads wear time: how many hours the fragrance keeps speaking before it fades. A bar that barely leaves the start means a few fleeting hours. One that runs the full length carries from morning into evening. Treat it as typical, not promised. Oily skin holds scent far longer than dry.
Sillage
the size of its scent trail
Sillage is French for a ship's wake, and that is exactly what this measures: how much of the scent reaches the room instead of staying on you. Low is a whisper only close friends catch. Enormous fills the room, then keeps filling it after you leave.
Experimental
Built to provoke, not to please
Some perfumes are made to be liked. These are made to be argued about: inky tar, hot rubber, fruit on the turn, metal and fur where you expected flowers. The coin glows for a scent that provokes and dims for one that plays it safe, which is sometimes the point.
Office
Polished, and never louder than the room
Scent is manners in a shared room. At this range it should reach the person across the desk and stop there: tidy citrus, soft musk, pale woods, all of it reading competent and considerate. A glowing coin means nobody has to mention it. A dim one means it travels.
Evening
After dark, when it deepens
Dinner, drinks, the night that runs long. Low light is where ambers, resins and smoky woods stop being polite, and where a plush floral finally blooms. A glowing coin means it is waiting for exactly this hour. A dim one means it did its best work in daylight.
Romantic
Close enough to be felt
A fragrance can hum against skin instead of announcing itself across a table. That is the register here: creamy florals, vanilla, soft musk, a thread of spice, warm enough to make someone lean in. The coin glows when a scent sets that mood and dims when it is more practical than seductive.
Formal
Quiet authority in a dressed-up room
A wedding, a ceremony, a room where everyone has thought about their shoes. What works here is structure, not volume: smooth woods, disciplined florals, soft leather. A glowing coin means it holds its posture all evening. A dim one means it is too casual for the room.
Casual
Easy comfort for unhurried days
Errands, coffee, a slow Saturday with nowhere to be. Nothing here has to impress anyone, so the fit is soft and easy: fresh citrus, light woods, a little warmth off the skin. A glowing coin says yes to all that. A dim one means the fragrance is asking for a bigger night.
Day to Night
where its mood naturally falls
A bar running from sun to moon, reading the hour the fragrance was made for. The more of it that stays gold, the more the scent belongs to daylight and open air. The further the blue reaches back toward the sun, the deeper and warmer it turns: evening, candlelight, low rooms.
Winter
Warmth that carries through cold air
Cold air mutes a fragrance and slows it down, which is why winter belongs to the dense and the warm: resin, smoke, vanilla, leather, ambered spice. The bar reads how well this one pushes back, glowing against the chill instead of thinning out in it.
Spring
Fresh blooms in mild, rising warmth
Mild, humid air lifts a light composition, so the season belongs to dewy florals, green stems, soft powder and citrus you can see through. Alive rather than heavy. The further the green runs along the bar, the more comfortably this one wears in that weather.
Summer
Bright and airy in real heat
Heat does the projecting for you, which is why the wrong perfume turns unbearable by noon. What survives is cool and breathable: sharp citrus, salt air, aromatic herbs, water. Things that refresh instead of cloy. A short bar here means save it for cooler months.
Fall
Spiced warmth for cooling days
As the air cools, the rich materials stop smothering and start reading clearly: dry woods, warm spice, tobacco, amber, fruit gone golden. It is the season perfume turns contemplative. The bar fills according to how naturally this one settles into crisp, cooling days.
Best Worn
Spring and summer evenings when heat amplifies white florals; it wears as presence, not accessory. One to audition on skin before any full bottle.
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The Vibe
The Nose
Alessandro Gualtieri
Founder and perfumer
Italian perfumer who began in a German fragrance lab, then made scents for Fendi, Versace and Helmut Lang before founding his own Amsterdam houses Nasomatto and Orto Parisi. He composes them himself, including Nasomatto Black Afgano, Nasomatto Silver Musk, Orto Parisi Megamare and Orto Parisi Bergamask.
More by this noseMegamareBlack AfganoBaraonda
The Maison
Gualtieri’s wordless extraits. Short names, long shadows, small vials.
Nasomatto treats a bottle less like a fragrance and more like a substance you keep behind glass, dense extrait concentrations that lean animalic, resinous and a little disobedient. A Nasomatto walks into the room as a smell first and a perfume second.
- Origin
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Founded
- 2007
- Known for
- Black Afgano, Baraonda
EVERY DECANT
From the original bottle to your door
We buy the original flacon at full retail price, direct from the house.
A medical grade Socorex syringe takes the exact millilitres straight from the flacon.
Packed into the hot foiled box and handed to DHL, every duty already paid. How a decant is made
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