Maison D’Etto Rotano Review (Carlos Benaim) + Galloping Horse Draw

May 15, 2020May 20, 2020

Did she dream? Was it he who went galloping past?
And bent down the fern, broke open the grass
And printed the mud with the well-hammered shoe
That she nailed to his speed in the dreams of her youth –Emmylou Harris, Ballad of a Runaway Horse

Photo by Richard Bush for I-D magazine, Sept 2010©

Their hooves are beating against the waves’ curl as they ache and pull to shores where they vanish. The crash and ebb repeats as the lash snaps above their tangled manes, the mineral spray of the ocean salt in their mouths, their breath making the ground cover of fog on the beach before. The animal tang of stallions leaping and pounding is in the air, cold, stony outcroppings of shale and sediment. Maison D’Etto Rotano from master perfumer Carlos Benaim is the quintessence of a galloping horse along a chilly beach, the aromas of cold sand, the dry warmth of driftwood beyond the shoals, and animalic leather, moving in rhythm like a heartbeat.

Brianna Lipovsky

Brianna Lipovsky’s Maison D’Etto line celebrates her childhood of riding beloved horses. Working in tandem with IFF master perfumer Carlos Benaim, Rotano was an international award winning horse Brianna rode 2015-2017. Its opening is all leather – assertively rich, expensive tanned hide like riding boots or a top-end saddle. The polished hide is accompanied by dry wood – the kind you’d find in a small cabin room that has been kept well but not aired: heated, close, dense, attics and broomsticks. The cypriol is very marked here. It suggests oud, petrol, and patchouli, underscoring the aromatic opening and intensifying the merging smells of woods and leather.

Photo by Koto Bolo for Numero 9-15

Rotano’s heavier notes begin to give way to as lighter notes push through unobtrusively. A spiritous waft of something akin to Armagnac but astringent – almost like witch hazel, more lab than cask – passes by. A chilly mineral undercurrent gathers, at times smelling very much like quarry rock, at other times like wet sand. It ebbs and repeats as the leather and woods join together. At this point, Rotano smells expensive, the leather transforming to suede; warm, slightly tannic, with that cool mineral counterpoise running through it like a vein a quartz in a sea stone. Rotano intensifies those aromas in the mid-section but brings something warm and animal to its heart; a smell almost of fur but without fur’s thick, dusty velvet quality.

Maison d’etto Rotano

This is the smell of horses in motion. Animalic, musky, heated, with hints of kicked earth clods and balsamic. Benaim apparently used a special molecule derived from a horse to create this fragrance, and it comes through to me as the smell of the living animal out in cool, salt-sprayed air.

White Colt, Connemara, photo by Greg Matchick

Cypriol, with its complex wood-oud-patchouli fragrance, bolsters the horsey and woody notes through the dry-down. As Rotano ages on the skin, it is hard to believe there isn’t oud in this composition as the perfume darkens and deepens. Breathing it in again hours later, pictures of the horses I saw once on the beach in Connemara come into view in my mind. I smell the sweep of the shoreline, the fresh-turned earth of the coastal trail. It is here, on the back of my hand.

Notes: Cypriol, halo musk, stallion accord, suede, myrrh, olibanum, cedarwood.

Disclaimer: sample of Rotano very kindly provided by Maison D’Etto. My opinions are my own.

— Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Editor’s note: we featured Mackenzie Reilly who composed Maison d’Etto Macanudo in our young perfumer series here

Photo by Maison d’Etto

Thanks to the generosity of Maison D’ Etto’s Creative Director and founder, Brianna Lipovsky there is a deluxe travel set of all five fragrances, including Rotano, Karat EG, Durban Jane, Macanudo and Canaan for one registered reader in the USA (be sure to register or your comment will not count). To be eligible, tell us what you enjoyed about Lauryn’s review of Rotano. Draw closes 5/18/2020

Support Small Businesses like Maison d’Etto here. They need you now more than ever.

This is our Privacy and Draw Rules Policy

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like ÇaFleureBon and use our blog feed … or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.