PHILTRE D'AMBRE

Extrait de Parfum

Philtre D’Ambre is the latest perfume from Artimique, a Venetian-based, Venice-inspired perfume house founded by Sara Marzocchini, who was raised in and still lives in the legendary city of lagoons and canals. She has worked with celebrated perfumer Cristiano Canali to interpret her memories, waterscapes and artistic force that flows through Venice.

Philtre D’Ambre is perhaps the best perfume of her collection to date, a true love letter to Venice and the sea. The city is quite unique in its architecture and melting pot legacy as an important gateway into Europe for luxury and exotic goods. Allied to the Silk Road and other trade routes, the city witnessed the import and fervent trade of porcelain, silks, damask, spices, precious metals, books, tea, paper and other items from places like Japan, China, Korean and Central Asia.

The city was an independent state for a long period, governed by a Doge, whose court was awash in opulence. Music, art, glass, lace, fine jewellery, painting, religion and ship building flourished due to the economic boom afforded by trade and commerce.

Sara is influenced by all aspects of Venice, the buildings built on wooden pilings sunk into the mud, palazzos, masonry, the myriad waterways, sandbanks, food and religion. This is most evident in this lavish and all-consuming perfume, Philtre D’Ambre, translating loosely as amber love potion.

Despite the obvious beauty and grandeur of Venice, there has always been a melancholy haunted aspect to the city. The wintry exile of Lord Marchmain and his mistress Cara in Brideshead Revisited, the epistolary shenanigans in James’ The Aspern Papers and the disturbing psychosexual claustrophobia of The Comfort of Strangers, a 1990 film directed by Paul Shrader, based on the book by Ian McEwan.

It is however the 1973 Nicolas Roeg film Don’t Look Now, based on the 1971 short story by Daphne du Maurier that perhaps encapsulates the complex magnificence of Philtre D’Ambre. A disturbing study of grief, starring Donald Sutherland and the unbearably beautiful Julie Christie visiting Venice after the tragic accidental drowning of their young daughter in a pond.

He is restoring an old church and a chance meeting with a pair of eerie sisters, one of whom is milky-eyed blind and claiming psychic abilities, says that their daughter is trying to contact them. Venice is mournful and sparse in the film, the couple’s grief amplified by the city’s labyrinthine construction and air of endangered history. The city is slowly drowning, water wanting to claim the city as water claimed their red-coated daughter. There are flashes of red, balloons, coats, strangers vanishing around corners and of course the terrifying confrontation and the end.

Cristiano Canali has used a huge dose of red mandarin and plush crimson Turkish rose at the top of Philtre D’Ambre. It feels shocking, almost confrontational. This floats on an extraordinary Venice Lagoon accord, created by Canali for Philtre d'Ambre to counterpoint any overt prettiness. It’s saline and oceanic, restless and ripe, with a faint green murmur at the edges, like water against stone, suggesting Venice’s strange splendour, half-romance and half-ruin, in the heat of summer.

More often than not, perfumes that include aquatic concepts fall short, over reliant on ozonic effects and blunt saltiness. But here, Canali's lagoon accord and use of red algae are not a genre exercise. Instead, they tint everything in the composition, lending a brine-kissed, savoury patina to the rose, resins and spice in this lavish and pensive perfume.

Base notes of patchouli, benzoin resin and the leathered rub of labdanum are supported beautifully by Peru balsam and a Venetian Church accord, another one of Cristiano’s intelligent and atmospheric scene-setters. He suggests the damp, crumbling chalkiness of the churches mingled with the ghosts of Catholic Mass and snuffed out candles.

Philtre D’Ambre is a perfume of occurrence, phantoms and history, examining past and present in a powerful essay of city shadows, remembrance and Venetian culture and literary influence. A beautiful addition to an already singular brand, it smells glorious on skin, shapeshifting, emotional and affecting.

Composition:

• Red Mandarin, Turkish Rose, Venice Lagoon Accord
• Myrrh, Red Algae Jungle Essence, Nutmeg, Clove
• Patchouli, Benzoin Jungle Essence, Labdanum, Peru Balsam, Venetian Churches Accord

Perfumer: Cristiano Canali, 2025

inci list: alcohol denat., parfum (fragrance), aqua (water), tetramethyl acetyloctahydronaphthalenes, pogostemon cablin oil, limonene, vanillin, citrus aurantium bergamia peel oil, benzyl benzoate, linalool, pinenes, linalyl acetate, citrus limon peel oil, myroxylon pereira balsam extract, rosa flower oil/extract, beta-caryophyllene, citronellol, benzyl cinnamate, geraniol, coumarin, citral, terpineol, terpinolene, geranyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, alpha-terpinene, carvone, eugenol, rose ketones, farnesol, camphor