✎ Malum / ACAMPORA: who destroyed the apple
Challenge to All Apple Lovers: Stand Up to Light Blue Fans and Tell Them What You Think About Apples! I think this: you have destroyed our nature! And someone should be held accountable! But who? Let’s find them. Review of Malum / ACAMPORA.
Translated by AI.
How Granny Smith, EU, and Light Blue Ruin Nature and Our Taste
Everyone in the world loves apples. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat this fruit, or at least hasn’t eaten strudel or drunk calvados. The synonym for apple scent has become Light Blue by D&G. To understand Malum, get to know the LB lineage.
After the revelation of Light Blue in 2001, the world was never the same. In retrospect, it may not seem so dramatic, you might shake your head “what, this dull summer water?”, but it caused many things.
Firstly: someone first used food-grade AROMA as an ingredient (the difference between Aroma and flavor can be found in the article What is … Aroma and Scent). A TABOO was broken, you might say “so what?”, but how do you think they would make Angel without food-grade caramel aroma, huh? And all those followers, including La Vie Est Belle, where the idea with caramel is taken to the absurd?
Secondly: until then, no one thought that a real perfume could smell like fresh apple, pear, strawberry, apricot… don’t forget, the era of chypre and light floral and citrus unisex fresh scents was ending. And suddenly this!
A million relatives of LB appeared, pear appeared, and it still goes on: purple Lanvin has been a sovereign winner of e-shop sales charts for about 15 years, after all, this year’s Valaya, what can we say (here’s the Valaya / Parfums de Marly review)… and LB itself is still alive and thriving. There are so many brothers, sisters, and real duplicates and fakes… that the originality of the idea has completely dissolved. That’s why LB seems ordinary to you today, similar to something. But it’s the opposite, they all resemble it: blue Light Blue 2001!
Thirdly: LB opened the cult of the perfumer, even though it was a slight trick. The perfumer is the experienced Olivier Cresp, whose qualities are unquestionable, but the author of the apple idea was Domenico Dolce, who also led the development of the fragrance as Art Director, the director, determining how the result would smell. He gave Oliver precise instructions and assignments. Domenico the brain, Oliver the hands – who is the real author? Domenico declared himself the author and a relentless internet war “Domenico is lying!” ensued. Oliver Crisp was eventually put in this position, but to me, it’s not fair. Without Domenico, this fragrance would not have been created.
However, since then, people have started noticing previously anonymous perfumers, niche brands must have the perfumer listed as the author for each fragrance… art directors are still ignored (unless they are also the Art Director themselves, like Andy Tauer or Santi Burgas). Injustice! We want to know the brains!
I just hope I’m not confusing Dolce and Gabbana and that it wasn’t the other way around 😀
Supermarket Apple Inspiration, Thank the EU
The magical apple that enchanted Domenico was the supermarket Granny Smith. The perfumer was to create the image of a Granny Smith apple somewhere in Sicily. But where did Granny Smith come from?
From Adam (and Eve) the story goes like this: the EU unified standards for fruit in supermarkets (remember the “correctly curved banana” case?). The consumer wants guaranteed identical goods throughout the EU, and then it’s also easy to count statistics on “how many apples the average European eats?”
This policy forced growers to uproot old varieties and plant bred Goldens and Grannies. Same size, fragrant and sweet, they record well in Calorie tables, no surprises await the customer. The trees are hardy, lush, and productive, allowing the fruiting cycle to be shifted so that we have ripe apples all year round. We laughed at socialist social engineering and the EU realized it!
I don’t know how LB affected the popularity of Granny Smith, but if it did, it’s good for our health. But what about nature?
Perfumed Apple Core Devastates Nature
British scientists conducted a tree census in nature and found that the surroundings of roads and highways are beginning to be dominated by unified varieties of supermarket apples. This is because people are driving more and more and throwing cores out of windows. It’s bio, it’s okay.
However, the seeds of supermarket apples take root well, and because apple trees are bred for vigor, they suppress trees in their vicinity. Supermarket apple trees are bred for high yield, sweet large apples are also liked by wild animals and birds. They spread the seeds of vigorous unified trees further and further from roads, displacing native species… A punishment for our proud civilization. Thank you, EU! Thank you, Light Blue 😉.
Review of Malum / ACAMPORA PROFUMI
The eruption of Vesuvius is considered a punishment for the proud civilization of Pompeii. The apple Malum comes from Pompeii, but it is not pompous. Compared to Granny Smith, it is a poor thing. Wild trees grew after the demise of greedy Pompeii on poor lava. A wild proto-apple from the shores of the Mediterranean, which no longer grows anywhere today. It was displaced by bred species.
Perfume Malum is part of the Tadema collection – Dutch painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema in the 19th century fell under the spell of Pompeii and painted completely photorealistic visions of how grandly life was lived in Pompeii based on excavations.
Source:
His most famous painting is called “The Roses of Heliogabalus”. The extravagant emperor Heliogabalus and his Queen Mother squandered the entire wealth of the kingdom in a few years on pleasures. In the painting, they watch as rose petals, a surprise from the emperor for his love of scent, rain down on their guests. There were so many roses that most guests suffocated under them. Pompous.
Source:
Fresh Juice to the Maximum
The beginning, absolutely photorealistic, just like Tadema’s paintings, depicts biting into a wild juicy apple. Tart, watery, full of vitamin C.
Extremely aromatic, because wild varieties still offer a range of flavors: before they are bred into a sweet unified fruit, you find various herbal green tones. This is represented here by fennel, freshly picked wild fennel.
The sharpness of the juice is also supported by freshly grated ginger.
It contains fruit sugar too, after all, it ripened in the sun, but there is so little of it that it only allows a slight caress of the tongue, so that tears don’t spring from our eyes over the sour tartness.
The beginning is terribly intense! If you close your eyes and open your mouth when you smell it, you can’t shake the feeling that you just bit into an apple. An apple that a digger pushed into your mouth. Convincing photorealism.
Salted Strudel
Nothing surprising happens next, a carefully classically built pyramid: the sour tones subside, allowing the heart and base to emerge. The base is very weak here because we focus on the wateriness and green aroma of the apple. Perfumer Miguel Matos continues the tutorial “how to eat an apple” and the further we bite from the sharp sour peel to the core, we bite into the seed in the form of a dry grain of cardamom, amused by a spoonful of cinnamon.
Synthetic, cold, almost mineral cinnamon (some might know it from Nu_Be/One of Those perfumes) eventually asserts itself, and the middle phase of the fragrance settles on a combo read well: water tones + fennel + green apple + cold cinnamon. That’s MEGA WEIRD, right? This fragrance is mega weird… like when you confuse the sugar bowl with the salt shaker while baking strudel. And yet one would think: what could be interesting about an apple?
There is still a dominant tone of sea water, sour juiciness that makes the saliva flow.
All’s Well That Ends Well… Or?
In the end, only calone – the sea water tone – remains. It lasts about 3 hours, and unfortunately, the ending… I know it can’t be avoided, that calone – the scent of windshield washer fluid – is one of the strongest ingredients ever. I REALLY don’t like it. But I forgive Matos this time. This is such a well-executed journey to the essence of an apple that I’m willing to close my eyes and bite into fennel too.
Is It Perfume or Art?
If you like apples and marine water tones, then it’s perfume. An indispensable pearl on your shelf. As I always write “you should try it”, this time it’s YOU MUST TRY IT! And vice versa: if you don’t like windshield washer fluid, you won’t get over it…
If not, try it too: Matos managed to paint a photorealistic portrait of an imaginary apple based on some memories. He actually proceeded just like Tadema. It’s not so common in niche: many brands today are going for commercial success, they want to survive and sell. Acampora (and that’s why I have this brand on the white list) makes art, steps into themes (remember the scandalous Melamin, which survived only one day in the world due to the hatred of social networks and #blacklivesmatters, and Acampora had to work hard to bury it?). In the Tadema collection, there is another beautifully strange fragrance, Pompei Red, the scent of brick color obtained from clay – that one is so conflicting even for me that I definitely won’t write a review. But sometimes I sniff it for joy…
Where to Buy Malum / Acampora from This Review?
Nowhere in the vicinity. In a few boutiques in southern Europe, but mainly in their temple in Naples, or on their website. Acampora surprisingly resists even the raids of the gray market, so I advise you: make time, order samples, find a perfumery, and dedicate yourself to it. No one else will have their fragrance but you. And those hand-sealed tins, you want that…
(For those who don’t know: you can buy a set with a concentrate and an empty bottle and make your own EdP-EdT at the concentration of your choice according to the instructions inside.)
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Disclaimer: This text summarizes the author’s personal impressions and subjective opinions. None of the authors on the blog take responsibility if your impression differs or if you decide to purchase a product based on this article.
