Profumum Roma Ambra Aurea Eau de Parfum is a rich, resinous, salty-sweet amber-driven fragrance that is complemented by lightly spiced woods and incense. It has a more linear progression with the drydown having some deeper, richer sweetness, that still felt like it derived from the amber, as it wasn’t really vanillic to me at all–too blended with a pinch of salt, a touch of musk, in a haze of smoke and spice. The notes are listed as “grey amber, incense, [and] myrrh.”
It opened with a salty-sweet, almost nutty caramel syrup that drenched my skin with the illusion of a warm, cozy blanket. The composition had more depth as there was a sweet, lightly spiced woody undercurrent that blended beautifully with the salty-sweet amber. Closer to my skin, the incense is more notable, while sitting up, the scent wafting up from my wrist was sweeter, more ambery with only a teasing of smoke and spice.
Ambra Aurea was a beautiful blend of its three listed notes– amber, incense, and myrrh–that became warmer, woodsy, and slightly musky over the next hour of wear. It became drier, spicier, and woodier in the base, almost like cedar wood, with the richer, slightly sweet amber like a warm blanket on top. The progression was linear from this point, even after five hours of wear, it was still the same mix, though it grew warmer, richer, and sweeter with less drier woods. Throughout the progression from opening to drydown, there was still a faint saltiness that really brought everything into balance for me.
For testing, I used half of a 0.7ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area on my left arm. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as this is also my swatching arm (aka, incredibly parched at any given moment) as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise. It was very long-wearing–lasting noticeably on my skin over 16 hours–and I got soft trails of the fragrance for the first four hours of wear whenever I raised my arm (like eating).
Subjectively, it was absolutely my kind of scent. It reminded me of a lot of Tom Ford’s Amber Absolute, which has been a long-time favorite and go-to scents, but Ambra Aurea is on the sweeter, softer (but not really that much less intense, just not as bombastic) side with less smokiness overall. I’m in the process of sampling other Profumum scents, so I haven’t decided on whether this will be something I add a full-size bottle of to my collection. I have plenty of Amber Absolute on hand, so even though I can differentiate between the two, it may make more sense to allocate budget toward another Profumum scent instead (at least for now!).
Available Sizes
- 100ml for $275
- 18ml for $93 (harder to find size in the US)
- 0.7ml sample for $6