Introducing Acqua di Parma's Cedro Virtuoso: Cedarwood Meets Hazelnut
There is something unexpected at the centre of Acqua di Parma’s latest fragrance: cedarwood and hazelnut.
Cedro Virtuoso joined the Italian house’s Signatures of the Sun collection this September, bringing together two ingredients that make slightly unusual partners.
Cedarwood is dry and aromatic; hazelnut softer and sweeter. Here, the two are infused together for 30 days in a process developed specifically for the fragrance.
The result is warmer than the bright citrus scents for which Acqua di Parma is perhaps best known. Calabrian bergamot provides the initial freshness, but cedar soon comes through, softened by the hazelnut without becoming overly sweet.
Its arrival also places it naturally among the warmer unisex fragrances suited to autumn, although Cedro Virtuoso remains relatively restrained compared with some of the season's richer scents.
It is woody, warm and relatively restrained, with the contrast between the two ingredients doing much of the work.
Fabrice Pellegrin on Cedarwood and Hazelnut
Behind it is Fabrice Pellegrin, the Grasse-born perfumer whose previous work includes fragrances for Hermès and Diptyque. His approach began with the cedarwood, looking for a way to bring out a different side of an ingredient that has long been a fixture of perfumery.
Hazelnut proved an unlikely answer. It was chosen not simply for its sweeter associations, but for the woody qualities it shares with cedar. It sounds like a small distinction, but makes sense on the skin: the hazelnut is there, just not necessarily in the way you might expect.
That balance also prevents Cedro Virtuoso from straying too far into gourmand territory. There is a creaminess to it, certainly, but it remains recognisably a woody fragrance. The bergamot running through the opening helps too, giving the composition enough freshness before the richer notes settle in.
A New Addition to Signatures of the Sun
The fragrance arrives in Acqua di Parma's 110th anniversary year, having begun with Colonia in 1916. Rather than straying particularly far from the house's established language, Cedro Virtuoso takes a familiar ingredient and handles it differently. It follows other recent additions to the Signatures of the Sun collection, including Luce di Rosa, Acqua di Parma's interpretation of the rose.
There is a wider collection too. The fragrance has been carried into a candle and diffuser, alongside a body cream and hand and body wash - a natural enough extension for a scent in which the cedarwood becomes increasingly noticeable as it settles.
But it is that slightly unlikely combination at the centre that makes Cedro Virtuoso interesting. Cedarwood and hazelnut might not immediately sound like natural companions. As it turns out, they get along rather well.
