Melograno 
Santa Maria Novella (1965)

At last I found a store in The Netherlands that stocks SMN. I bought two colognes. Of course Melograno and Patchouli. Anyway the Melograno amazed me. Aldehyde monster that it is. I had an old fashioned mother and she didn’t take to washing machines until the mid 70’s by which time I had left home. She would do our sheets each week on a Friday afternoon just before Shabbat. I don’t know which soap she used, UT it wasnt flakes, that much I remember. I as a young boy was allowed to turn the handle of the wringer, after she had soaped with a bar of soap and then rinsed. The smell of soap filled the house. This transports me back. Because it says cologne on the bottle, I expected it to not last too long. But it’s insane how long it lasts on me. And I have a skin that usually eats scent up quickly. I love it. I like many others don’t smell any pomegranate. But the soapyness does give way to some citrus and slight flowery and musk like scent. I sprayed it on my wrist yesterday afternoon and now today in the evening I still smell it under my watch strap. Big thumbs up from me and I will certainly buy another bottle

My first encounter with SMN Melograno was through a visit to Pickwick's Mercantile in Portsmouth NH, where a sales assistant suggested I smell the finely milled soap bar. I was immediately enamored and bought it on the spot, radiantly aldehydic and mossy, evoking only the tartness of pomegranate arils and no sweetness. I relished that bar of soap and just knew that I had to have the cologne itself one day.

Now, with it in my posession, I am just as smitten. The heart of the scent is hawthorn blossoms dusted with orris powder. Melograno's moss note is testament to the fact that the oakmoss, just as sandalwood and civet, continues to live on in perfumery through exceptional reconstructions as this bottle certainly was produced after heavy restrictions were put into place. I imagine vetiver and patchouli in the base certainly helps, but its just ravishing. Likewise, opoponax, also recently restricted, is really apparent to my nose through its dry down, bittersweet, dry, almost toffee-like. Soapy, sure, yet transcending the soap as a full-bodied, glorious chypre.

A true work of art.

Another perfume that heavily features SMN's signature mix of soapy, musky, powdery clove and orange, this time paired up with cinnamon-dusted damascene plum (that pleasant red fruity smell that's often sold as pomegranate).

The end result is very old-fashioned: almost barbershoppy (but too feminine), almost like potpourri (but too powdery), and almost like a powdery chypre perfume (but not floral enough). It's a powder bomb, the kind of loud scent that perfume-haters really hate, but with careful application, it smells soapy and clean and spicy and wonderful.

I've been hearing about this fragrance line for a long time on Basenotes. I sampled this fragrance in Vail, Colorado and I love it. It's a very green scent. The lasting power is amazing. I'll be buying a bottle soon.

Melograno (Pomegranate) is by far and away the bestselling fragrance in the Santa Maria Novella line-up, a fact that surprises me every time I smell it. It's not so much that it's an odd fragrance (although it is) but that it's extremely hard to pin down.

If you read the reviews for Melograno, you will see that it seems to be a different fragrance from one wearer to the next – to some, it is a green chypre along the lines of Givenchy III, to others it is the edgier twin of the grandest aldehydic monster ever created, Chanel No. 22, and to yet others, it is nothing more than detergent soap made into a fragrance. The one thing that everybody agrees upon is that it doesn't smell like pomegranates.

Perhaps Melograno is successful because it is so dependent on the individual skin chemistry and scent memories of each wearer, and is therefore the olfactory equivalent of a mood ring. Mood rings were popular for a reason – we all like to feel that the end result is reflective of our individual personalities and chemistry. In that case, Melograno is the ultimate bespoke fragrance – it smells like a mixture of scent, your skin, and a complex bundle of memories and mind associations that are purely your own.

For what it's worth, to me it smells like a mixture of aldehydes, green flowers, luxury soap, and church incense, with a faint but stirring note of urinal puck running through the base. Why this odd mish mash of elements should work is beyond me, but without doubt, the end result is resolutely appealing. What it will smell on you, and whether you'll like it, is anyone's guess.