September Memory – – ERBA by MONOM Profumi

Posted by
Sarah Colton
Date
 September 24, 2020
Comments
5 comments
Share

“ERBA” by MONOM Profumi. 

 

 fragrance GIVE-AWAY  

WINNER Announced Below on November 2, 2020

 

 

When you smell a fragrance you might think you know what you’re getting into, but you don’t….

Like any work of art, if a fragrance is masterfully crafted, it can have a powerful and unexpected impact on the wearer.

 

What is YOUR most powerful fragrance memory ?

 

A  recent visit to the Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris, was the point of one such powerful and surprising departure for me, beginning when I smelled some of the original fragrances of the MONOM line — Oscuro, Nardo, Floreo. Immediately, I was in  Florence, Italy, at the Pitti Fragranze trade show in September of 2016, at the very the instant I smelled them for the first time as part of the newly launched MONOM collection. We were all there again. Absolutely intact. The fragrances. MONOM’s owner, Simone Bongiorno. The mood.The Moment.

 

And that was the simple part.

Because right afterwards, having mistakenly assumed I was back to the relative safety of the Dover Street Parfums Market, I smelled ERBA, the newest fragrance in the MONOM collection. Immediately, and without warning, ERBA’s intense opening notes of aromatic green-ness snatched me way away – far from Dover Street Parfums Market, Paris, Florence, Pitti, Europe, even this century — and thrust me deeply into layers of older, much older memories.

 

ERBA lured me by first reminding me of my love for the ‘maquis’ undergrowth so typical of Mediterranean regions of Europe, and taking me to memories of the year in my early twenties when I moved from America to Europe. Little by little though, it became clear that ERBA wasn’t going to stop there. Oh, no.  While continuing to murmur the same mantra of deeply contrasting light and dark bitter-sweet aromatic green notes, ERBA  gathered intensity and began insinuating a progression of increasingly personal notes and tones — shadowy, dark, tender. Smoky, exalting. ERBA was taking me somewhere else. There was no stopping. No more secrets. As I was to find out, ERBA knew about, and was adept at taking me to much older memories, way before I left America and moved to France, including details even I had forgotten about a particular September afternoon, the year I turned 16. The kind of afternoon where the sharp angle of the sun makes you see that what was green only moments before, is now burnished.

 The video, “September Memory ERBA by MONOM Profumi”, documents a series of timed smelling sessions that lasted from 3:15pm in the afternoon to 2am the next morning, during which I re-lived this memory.

One of the most interesting things this ERBA fragrance experience taught me is how alive my own skin is. And how, in combination with a powerful fragrance, it maintains memory in its own language — part poetry, part something else.  Even now, days after applying ERBA, if I hold my wrist to my face and allow myself to concentrate, I can sense, more than smell, the faint vibration of a fragrance. It’s there. Compelling. I have no choice but to follow.

 

 

 

Facts about MONOM and ERBA

Founded in in Italy in 2014 by Simone Bongiorno.

The name, MONOM, is a Palindrome —  a word, phrase, or number that like a mirror image, reads the same backward or forward.

Perfumer: Nicola Bianchi

Composition: intense and complex blends of 100% fragrance oil.

Unisex

Presentation:

Black-violet 10 ml or 30 ml bottle with glass ‘roll-on’ applicator and elegant “MN” logo on the Bakelite cap.

Enclosed in magnetic transparent Plexiglas outer casing.

 

 

www.MONOMprofumi.com

@j.c.m studio

 

Video Music Credits:  “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks 

Voice Sarah Colton   Accompaniment copyright free Karaoke.

 

END

 

October 1, 2020

I had a chance to meet up with Simone in a café yesterday, while he was visiting Paris. So thrilling to see him in person after three years.  He’s still as passionate as ever about his MEMO fragrance oil creations.

Among other things, we talked about one of the most surprising elements for me in the whole experience of filming ERBA’s development on my skin : our own skins’ capacity to hold memory.  It seems that thanks to this living capacity working in tandem with the power of olfaction, ERBA was able to trigger and open a precious memory for me, and maintain it for me in real time for more than 12 hours.  Indeed, although I concluded the video at 2am, the fragrance and its memory, though fainter, were still with me when I woke up the next morning and lasted well into the late afternoon.  POWERFUL stuff, that ERBA !

Simone also gave me an exquisitely beautiful miniature collection of ALL the MEMO fragrances*, and suggested that I layer them.  Doing just that at this moment with musky and woody OSCURO layered on ERBA. What this has done on my skin is take ERBA to a deeper, earthier, even more sensual level. SORRY, not going to tell you about THIS memory!

 

*Available for purchase on the MEMO website as the “Discovery Kit”

 

 

Here’s WHAT you can WIN 

1. A 10ml bottle of ERBA by MONOM Profumi, generously offered by owner, Simone Bongiorno;  

2. FIVE SIGNED copies of my book, Bad Girls Perfume, full of tips and tales about how to get whatEVER you want (including tapping into your most cherished dreams and memories) through the power of perfume.

 

HERE’S HOW TO QUALIFY 

1. Watch the  video above;

2. Answer the following question: EITHER here OR on my instagram post @sarahcolton2020 or @badgirlsperfume OR on my youtube chanel 

* Have you smelled ERBA ?  Does the “September Memory” video increase your desire to smell ERBA or any of the other MONOM fragrances? Why, or why not?

3. Optional question: Do you have a personal fragrance memory to share? 

 

ENJOY!!

xxx

Sarah and the Bad Girls

 

And the winners are:

 

 

1.A 10ml bottle of ERBA by MONOM Profumi, generously offered by owner, Simone Bongiorno.

Olga  @perfumedaze 

 

2.FIVE SIGNED copies of my book, Bad Girls Perfume.

  1. @candice_sabatini
  2. @Cassandra.m_official
  3. @scentedsnowdrops
  4. @HouseofSarahBaker
  5. @ratonlaveur100

Sorry this announcement took so long, and that I have not responded individually to all your comments, as I like to do.

 

As some of you know, I had a bout with Covid-19. Thank goodness all is well now, but it pretty much put me out of circulation for 3 weeks.

 

I love ALL your comments and will respond individually asap.

 

Meanwhile, Stay well. You REALLY don’t want to mess around with Covid.

 

xxx

Sarah and the Bad Grrrs

 

5 comments

  1. Jon Snow |

    Sarah? Are you saying you really telling us all you’re still not in your 20s? Don’t believe it. And yeah fragrance and smell is so powerful.

    Well for me, I’ve mentioned it it a few times but for me it’s Black Orchid. And it’s that most powerful memory love. It reminds me probably of the most powerful love of my life. And one particular memory. It was probably 2nd or 3rd time we had seen each other. A sunny day in her village. Everytime time I smell it, it’s walking up this massive hill, me moaning as I do, holding her soft hand, talking. Then when we got to the top just sitting in a field, looking over her local city in the distance and greater Manchester the other way. That sweet soft scent in the air, actually sitting next to her just feeling each other next to each other, a moment where everything stopped, no words, a soft tender kiss. That moment where you’re both the universe. Now I can’t wear the real version as I want to preserve that memory. Although if we are honest ofcouse the person will always be special but it’s more that one happy moment that is the special part and everytime I smell it now, I’m there.

    I do waffle lots but it is still such a vivid memory triggered by that fragrance. Her lips, her eyes, the smell of her skin, the tingle of her touch, the smell of the warm grass and flowers all around and the sweet magic of Black Opium all around.

    • Jon Snow |

      And adding about the video, who wouldn’t love a story told by one of the best story tellers there is, the years and memories passing through each moment, the memories of the woods and the soft earth and the light between the trees maybe something where both our memories are slightly similar 🙊 also I may have dated a lady called Maray before which is a strange intreguing coincidence. I knew she was named after a street in Paris and of course I’d like to try this, to go through so many moments and memories

  2. Olga Perfumedaze |

    What a fabulous story Sarah! So romantic! As for me, I always return to Rome in my mind when I wear Femme by Hugo Boss. It is one of my favourites, but I’m trying not to use it frequently to save the link between the fragrance and roman memories. It is a magical city where time seem to stop. This can be one of the reasons it is called eternal. And every time I visit it, I do not feel my age or any kind of anxiety, just total bliss of “dolce far niente” (sweet loitering) 🙂

  3. Natalia Alaimo |

    What a beautiful video, writing Sarah 💕, so much to learn from you, thank you for facts about Erba by MONOM, now I know that is palindrome and other great facts about Erba, no just that, I read it very careful, I like it all details are amazing to me especially what you learned from Erba, it’s interesting and intriguing, Because we always forget the most important thing- Ourselves, our Skin, our way to carry on the Aroma of fragragrances it’s pure Magic- composition of perfum and combination of our Skin can surprised you in a misteriose way, make you go to all different dimensions of life back, present or even it can take you to the future! Thank you for introducing me to new house, new perfum, new experience through your video and writing I got please to see power of Erba by MONOM. My answer to challenge #1 I never smell Erba by MONOM #2 your video definitely increase my desire to smell Erba, or other 💯% fragragrance oils from MONOM # 3 you probably know this perfum that I love so much because of the power of transport me to my grandparents home, everything about them I love so much and I love this Perfum for this gift to me, it’s @morillas.alberto GUCCI Memoire d’une Odeur my favorite comforting chamomile Scent of love and peace 💚🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

    • We Are Scentient |

      Dear Sarah
      What a beautiful review, scents that evoke memories & journeys are my favourite kind. Erba sounds like a beautiful forrest adventure through time & it’s one I’m dying to go one. It’s been too long since I’ve been lost in the trees. Now it’s occasional jaunts in the burbs. I’ve been looking at their line for a while, Respiro & Brama also whisper to me in tempting incensey ways. MONOM has a beautiful minimal aesthetic too, which appeals to my taste too. But alas sadly nothing that exotic makes it to these shores. One must swim to London for such things to sniff. Great to hear a DSM is now in Paris, the one in London is like walking into an art installation but the commerce side is less hidden 😉. They use to be my fix for CdG but now no longer ship here, I may have been their last shipment. 😬 as for scented memories hmm well I’m not sure what it was, but there’s a coconut aroma that brings back vivid memories of an encounter with a writer on her way to Paris for her book launch. It brings back memories of an evening of excellent conversation, too much whiskey, an intimate encounter with us both departing with messy lipstick stained faces. The smell of coconut, a specific one I still don’t know, has haunted me since…
      Thank you for your wonderful video adventure. Xoxo 🌹

Leave a Comment

Please wait...