Extra Virgo Animal Café courtesy of the brand
After sex, after coffee, after everything there is to be said —
The hovering and beautiful alphabet as we form our first words after making love.
And somehow, I’m still alive.– Carole Maso
H.H. Prince Alex Postiglione Ne Min Gy of Limbin, Michele Marin, Extra Virgo at Pitti Fragranze 2022 – Danu Seith- Fyr©
Always certain stands at the perfume salons draw me in extricably close, no loitering or hovering or sidestepping, the ones who are not on my calendar of appointments yet something coded within the name or the visuals before me, speak myriad tones and I am captured. Extra Virgo did precisely that at Pitti Fragranze 2022, held as usual in beautiful Florence, the city of my dreams. My instincts are never wrong footed and with the guidance of one of Extra Virgo’s perfumers, Michele Marin, I explored. What an exceptional collection Forbidden Botanicals is, profound and deeply erotic perfumes, oscillating between a hypnotic lulling to a no-holds barred eroticism that shocks and entices in the same gasp of breath, a sirenic lure. Each one is composed of the finest extractions, taking from the name of each perfume and probing the namesake and its attendants right to their very core, exposing a soul facet of each.
H.H. Prince Alex Postiglione Ne Min Gy of Limbin – H. H. website
The magistral skill of perfumers Sileno Cheloni and Michele Marin along with the vision of Extra Virgo’s creator and nose, H.H. Alex Postiglione of Limbin, a hereditary dynasty of Burma/Myanmar have created an exception. H.H creative direction and passion for scent was born out of a great love of plants, spices and perfume inspired by his family lineage, history, culture and especially that of his grandmother H.H. Princess Yadana nat Mai, Goddess of the Nine Jewels.
Alexander Krivitsky, Adrien Converse Unsplash and Extra Virgo collage by Danu.
I rightly felt as if all my perceptions were born anew, discarded understandings of coffee, cacao, mushroom, cannabis and tobacco left burnt to ashes and littering the floor, a new comprehension of each arose. The Extra Virgo Forbidden Botanicals Collection certainly feels as if something hidden for centuries has been given breath. Quite the experience, slightly enamored ever since, it is my pleasure to write of the 2023 Art and Olfaction Finalist, Animal Café by HH Prince Alex of Limbin and Perfumer Michele Marin. Profound bohemian pleasures, interwoven scent, flesh and layers of time, all whisper cloistered arcane words into a willing ear.
via wiki
There is something that draws us in as human beings with our sense of smell and certain particular aromas that capture our attention and longing. Coffee is one, even if you dislike the drink itself, its scent is tempting, draws us. Animal Café from Extra Virgo is coffee at its sublime best, in fact a triple shot of the worlds best, extractions of Arabica, Columbian, Ethiopian and Indonesian, 30% of coffee absolutes, a rare quality. This wild ride combination of coffee opens Animal Café with a hypershot of the most silken enrobed beans, a creamy chocolate/coffee aspect igniting desire yielding to a mouthwatering roast, it swirls and embraces, with a sensual sweep akin to the touch of bronzed hands on my pale skin. A frisson in its wake, brightened and transported in combination with clove and cinnamon, both so softly applied on my skin as to excite and invite but not dominate, in fact the clove is so beautifully rounded, it purely acts to elevate the coffee in its ascent. I am drawn aside into that oblivion of my own making, Extra Virgo Animal Café the catalyst supreme.
via unsplash
The night airs are thickened and taut, my body emulates this unyielding state, heavy with the suffused heat of a passing day, wafting through the intricacies of carved perfumed screens at my window, filtering the smells and sounds of the alleys below, sylphic wraiths they come uninvited to cocoon me. A bed swathed, brightly patterned and hued, a cacophony of colour laid upon me in silken caress, the waiting interminable yet tempered by the layers of vapor’s that enter through that shuttered opening. In breaths deep and urgent, I inhale desire. Below the merchants of the night souk continue their fervent trading, the searchers of the exotic at their disposal, gregarious groups gather and exchange their daily lives for a night clad encounter, charmed by the coffee shop below. Spectral haze within the spent heat of the day carries aloft the roasted aromas, voluptuous and lush in creamed perfection for me to inhale within my sanctuary, a contrast to the milling crowds below. Spices heighten my longing, warming and enticing, a hedonistic oud rises from the myriad burners stirring my senses in preparation for his anticipated arrival, laying me to waste in sanctified readiness.
Extra Virgo Animal Café ad campaign courtesy of the brand
Bursting like a petal on my form, beckoning in silent voices sent out across the alleys of people for him to hurry. How minutes become hours in this waiting, longing permeating my body with an intense embering, destined to rage in flame all the night long. I seem lost in this swirl of senses, Extra Virgo Animal Café spins me into a sublimated state, an eksatsis in waiting poised at the very edges of delirium. In the shortness of breath and encapsulated within moments I am lit from within, night-time rivulets gather on my inner thigh, an expression of the heated darkness, a subtle animal scent rising, there it is, my heart races with a different tempo, flushes of anticipation in waves. That footfall upon the stair, the door below yielding to his hand and the preceding waft announcing his imminency in civet tones, animalic suffused in flesh, softened by heated skin and my soul parts to greet him. I am undone to myself…
Extra Virgo Animal Café is a romp in sensual anticipation and an abandonment to the senses, it’s a wild ride with beautiful companions, dark and uncompromising, it is a sublime ecstasy which couples’ endurance with quality. A coffee salutation like no other with a refined artistry. Time for another coffee? Or two?
Olfactory Notes for Extra Virgo Animal Café: Colombian, Ethiopian and Indonesian roasted coffee absolute, South East Asian Cloves, Sri Lankan Cinnamon, Vintage Papua New Guinea Oud, Vintage Civet paste
Note from the brand: “All Extra Virgo perfumes are composed of high grade natural ingredients (70 – 80% ). The juices are aged for at least 3 months before being blended with natural alcohol with a concentration of around 25% to 30%”.
–Danu Seith-Fyr, Guest Contributor
Samples were kindly provided by Extra Virgo at Pitti Fragranze, Florence 2022, my thoughts are mine alone.
Thanks to the generosity of Extra Virgo and H.H. Prince Alex Postiglione of Limbin we have an Extra Virgo 5 x 2ml Sample set to offer a registered reader worldwide. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Danu’s review of review of Ex Virgo Animal Café. Draw closes 8/22/23
Extra Virgo Animal Café was a Finalist for the 2023 Art and Olfaction Awards. See Michelyn’s article here on the Art and Olfaction Finalists
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