Francesca Bianchi SEX AND THE SEA extrait de parfum

Sex and the Sea is a 2016 release from luxury niche perfumer Francesca Bianchi, who treats perfumery as "an intellectual process," inspired by "the power of what it means to be human, by the wish to connect with people’s inner life, the desire to spark an emotion in them and make them feel at home in their own bodies, offer solace, or just a quick fix for a bad day." Sex and the Sea, an Amber Floral fragrance, has a scent profile of amber, sweet, powdery, animalic, coconut, fruity, vanilla, warm spicy, tropical, and balsamic notes.

Mimosa, Pineapple, Coconut, Immortelle, Rose, Iris, Sandalwood, Myrrh, Labdanum, Benzoin, Ambergris, Civet, Vanilla

From Francesca Bianchi:

"Accords: Oriental, powdery, fruity, animalic
Mood: outrageously seductive, original, naughty

This perfume represents the memory of a sensual encounter at the seaside. Far from being a fresh-ozonic, harmless perfume, it is a passionate and wild concoction of overheated skin, coconut sun lotion, saltiness of the sea and the sand, suggesting the atmosphere of a voluptuous rendez-vous behind the dunes.

This is an extrait de parfum, so use sparingly as the concentration is 25%. It has a great longevity (an average of 12h).

A personal, off-the-record story about Sex and the Sea

Sex behind the dunes…. an adult sexy dream, but actually this scent has a slightly different genesis.

During my childhood and teenage years I used to spend lots of time at the seaside. One of the strongest memories of that time is the smell of my skin, which I liked to sniff like a junkie. Eventually my parents sold the house at the seaside, and university, work, boyfriends etc. brought me far from that memory. Five years ago I moved to the Netherlands and I forgot the smell of my sweaty, salty skin.

Sometimes back I bumped into a face cream of L’Occitaine containing Immortelle. The odor of that plant was actually not so pungent in the cream, nonetheless it was strongly pulling out of my head the childhood memory of my skin.

I confess I had totally neglected the essential oil of Helicrysium which was sitting on my shelf.  But now I smelled it again, with a new nose.  I worked on a special amber accord, I would say — a  human one. A Civet tincture reinforced this intimate atmosphere, while a special ambergris molecule added the mineral-salty touch.

So this was the starting point: a sun-burnt, sweaty, salty skin — one of the most comfortable, and probably weird memory I had in my heart.

While working on this core idea, inevitably other dirty-minded ideas popped up, and I added to this weird yet innocent idea a more sultry, sinful, decadent fantasy of remotely tropical, creamy, sticky skin after a sexual intercourse."