I’d taken myself off the Francesca Bianchi PR sample distribution list when I moved to Africa in 2023, but by coincidence, my husband discovered the brand all by himself while on a business trip to Montenegro. There, in a small perfume shop on the main drag of Podgorica, he stumbled upon what he called ‘one of the best smells he had ever smelled’ but couldn’t remember which one it was, so he ordered the full set directly from Francesca Bianchi’s site. All independently of me, of course, which is par for the course in my family.
Anyway, he went through all 15 (more?) samples in the set and was sadly never able to ID the perfume he’d fallen in love with in Montenegro. On the other hand, it allowed me to smell some Francesca Bianchi samples I hadn’t smelled before, hence this quickfire round of reviews.
Encounters
So called because of the meeting of East (oud) and West (iris), Encounters is one of the most original takes on oud and one of the least original Francesca Bianchi perfumes that I have smelled. And I mean both of those things in the most positive way possible. Original because applying the very violety ionones of orris butter to the heady, sour woody thickness of oud produces an effect of freeze dried particles of oud dispersed in cold air. Filled with light, air, and tiny touches of flowers, the normally turgid brick of oud turns into a puff of fairy glitter. I find this magical and strange, a lovely new look at a material that has been done to death. It also occurs to me that this may be a perfect entry level scent for women drawn to the idea of oud’s exoticism but not to its sometimes sour or animalic heaviness as presented in many commercial or niche fragrances. It smells like oud, yes, but also like cosmetics.
On the other hand, the base of the scent, once the boudoir-ish, mica-like veil of iris and spice draws back, is the typically warm, resinous and slightly dirty, leathery iris-amber to which Francesca Bianchi often reverts. If you love perfumes such as the Dark Side and Under My Skin, then you will also love the drydown of Encounters for its familiar Bianchi hug lurking in the drydown. I personally love that musky, acidulated iris accord that she does so well and think that there are few things better smelling that the scent of that sharp, funky calcified-pee-scraped-off-a-rock castoreum note she seems to always pair with iris. But if you’re not a fan, the drydown of Encounters isn’t going to convert you, and if you are a fan but looking for something a little different in the base, then you might be disappointed.
Byzantine Amber
I love amber in all its forms and so really enjoy Byzantine Amber, but even I was surprised at how straightforward this was. Its simplicity makes sense when you consider that it is part of Francesca Bianchi’s ‘essential’ line, which feature her takes on the essential bedrocks of perfumery, such as neroli (I loved her Neroli Libertine), amber, oud, and musk. But I know Francesca Bianchi and I’m not sure how she resisted the urge to do something perverted and weird to the amber accord here.
Resist she did, though, and the result is a beautifully thick, dry, incensy amber that smells like an indie version of Chanel’s Le Lion. It has the same initial brightness as Le Lion, though it uses the minty-rosy sting of geranium to achieve it rather than Chanel’s bergamot, but the main idea is similar. It should be noted that Le Lion improves upon the incense-amber templates of both Ambra Aurea (Profumum Roma) – by being far drier and more leathery – and Amber Absolute (Tom Ford) – by being more wearably sheer in texture. As such, it follows that, by being closer to Le Lion than to any other similarly styled incense amber on the market, Byzantine Amber is an improvement on those older models too.
On the other hand, the thick dustiness in Byzantine is that of a fuzzy woolen blanket and old woods, while the dust in Le Lion comes sheared off a lump of frankincense and is more austere. The dollop of leather in Le Lion is quite animalic, similar in fact to the horsey, saddle soap, and poo funk of Cuir de Russie, while Byzantine Amber remains warmly inviting, non-confrontational, its leather a texture more than a smell. Le Lion is directly related to Shalimar (without the powder), while there is no familial connection there with Byzantine Amber.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to spend 90% of a review of Byzantine Amber comparing it to Le Lion, but I guess the fact that I just did means that I think highly of an indie perfume’s ability to orbit this closely to a Chanel. Personally, I enjoyed Byzantine Amber a lot, don’t think it’s essential for anyone who already owns any of the resinous ambers mentioned above, but would be happy to steer people who are still amber-curious or Chanel-avoidant in the direction of Francesca Bianchi.
Unspoken Musk
Reactions to Unspoken Musk, as with any musk, seems to be divided according to whether you can smell the composition in its entirety or only parts of it. The latter group finds it to be clean, inoffensive, and even a little boring (that classic white musk profile), while the former finds it urinous and therefore awful. I can smell all of Unspoken Musk and am mystified by the violent reactions. To my nose, it follows the track of The Musc (Essential Parfums), Helmut Lang EDP, and even Kiehl’s Musk in that it straddles the line between clean and unclean, so that it really could be both or either depending on the moment you turn to inspect it. For the most part, it is dominated by a clean, fluffy iris-musk accord supported by a base of warm, honeyed resins and tonka bean.
But there is a touch of hyraceum and civet, both essences squeezed from the nether regions of animals (ethically collected as a waste product in the case of hyraceum and artificially mimicked by an aromachemical in the case of civet), which together add a rather sharp and unlovely dimension to the scent.
To be fair, though, these accords do not smell like urine, they just smell like the undercarriage of a beloved pet – a cat at best or a kid goat at worst. And it is the counterposing of something a little feral with the cleanliness of the main body of the scent – that cloudy, musky nothingness – that gives the scent its human sensibility, and by corollary its sensuality. I love the hide and seek nature of musks like this, the ones that are neither too clean or too foul but contain elements of both, just like real human bodies do. I have far too many examples of this in my collection to want to pick Unspoken Musk up myself, but I beg people trying this out to refrain from judging it on a cursory sniff of its top notes or even on one wear alone. It is a scent that cries out for longer acquaintance.
Source of Samples: A Francesca Bianchi sample set purchased by my husband directly from the brand’s website.
Cover Image: Photo by Geranimo on Unsplash
