Revisiting Acqua di Selva in 2023

David Niven goes for his kidnapping reminder, hidden behind his trusty bottle
of Acqua di Selva in "The Pink Panther" (1963).

Just as I suspected, based on all the olfactory feedback I've been getting with my weekly "aroma-therapy" sessions, Acqua di Selva has proven to be the first fragrance that I've smelled clearly on myself for most of the work day. 

As mentioned in my last post, peppermint has consistently been the clearest note detected by my Covid-addled honker. It has conjured memories of my first bottle of Acqua di Selva, which I felt was a very mint-forward and piney Italian cologne in the usual midcentury Mediterranean style. I received my second bottle yesterday, and with one sniff, every note is clear and accounted for. 

The overall composition does smell a bit more muted than it otherwise would, but I could smell it in brief snatches throughout the day. Most striking is the fact that I can smell the dihydromyrcenol in the composition as a slightly incongruent bitterness, which is how it smells in every other dihydromyrcenol-fueled scent in my collection. It is used in a very small amount in Acqua di Selva's formula, as it is only a fleeting essence that rapidly vanishes behind a handful of far more lucid notes.

And that's the thing about this fragrance that my post-Covid nose has taught me: it must be made of mostly natural materials. Sure, there are synthetics in there, and yes, several of them are stand-ins for particular notes, but my recovery experience has been that natural materials smell relatively normal, while lab-contrived molecules are, to varying degrees, a bit "off." Nearly all of Acqua di Selva smells like what it intends to, i.e., a clutch of citruses, pines, field mints, lavender, geranium, woods, and moss. 

I've always considered Acqua di Selva to be Pierre Wargnye's inspiration for Drakkar Noir (1982). Although it was released in 1949, Victor's formula survived the decades unscathed, and even now, under the hand of Visconti di Modrone, the fragrance smells as fresh and crisp as it ever did. I'm sure the vintage version was smoother and even more "natural" in feel, and was likely loaded with real oak moss in its base. But the current formula lasts a solid five to six hours, and smells great. A reminder that classic masculinity can be as casual and effortless as a ten dollar cologne from the old country.