Can perfume smell fluorescent? After my first hit of Yendi, an odd and intriguing floral by Capucci, I can say that the answer is yes. First impression? It's a Gatorade lime-floral popsicle meets musky fur.
Yendi opens on a high note that combines fizzy citrus (it read as lime to me), soft-powdery sweet hyacinth, and clear rose and bright florals, including an intense lily-of-the-valley.There's a leafy-green facet reminiscent of coriander, but I don't see that in the official H&R list of notes.
Top notes: Aldehydes, bergamot, hyacinth, peach, raspberry
Heart notes: Rose, honey, lily of the valley, cyclamen, clove bud, orris, orchid
Base notes: Sandalwood, musk, cedarwood, amber, styrax, vanilla, moss
Yendi warms up fast, thanks to a fleeting clove bud note that bridges the perfume's crisp top and heart to its woody-musky-incensey and powdery drydown.
The styrax and musk base gives Yendi a fresh, clean-but-slightly-dirty — perfume plus body odor — scent that I find incredibly sexy. I kept sniffing myself to see if it was my body odor I was smelling (don't worry, I wasn't in public!) or something produced by the perfume. After about an hour, my EDT Yendi left a faint amber/vanilla impression with a whiff of powdery orris. Wow.
This juxtaposition of fizzy citrus and clear florals with a subtle musky drydown makes Yendi my kind of spring fragrance — bright but complex. Unlike the "clean" fragrances that came to dominate the 90s, Yendi (and many other 70s florals, chypres and green scents) maintains an allegiance to the body by retaining traces of its musky sweat in the notes. These scents aren't trying to mask the body — just embrace it.
I'm not a fan of powdery fragrances, and in subsequent sniffings, that intitial lime fizziness in Yendi wasn't there as prominently as its powdery aspect, but I'm sure if I pick it after a few days, it will unfold anew again. Fantastic.
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A note on the name Yendi, and the designer Roberto Capucci. Yendi is the name of a city in Ghana, and I can't for the life of me figure out if there is any sort of connection to the perfume. As for the designer, the "Givenchy of Rome" Roberto Capucci was known for his colorful, sculptural gowns. I was amazed when I searched for some of his dresses, which really are wearable art: fantasias of origami'd, paper-machied looking wonders. Below is just a smattering (click on the image to enlargen it), but if you want to see more and get to know Capucci's work better, check out the following links: Ruckstuhl, Light Color Sound, Belle's Pics, Acemicaylak, and Mondo DelGusto's and Jenn in Rome's flickr pages.
Love his dresses , I was just thinking "very Japanese" when I saw you comment they are very Origami.
Posted by: angie Cox | February 21, 2011 at 02:52 PM
Hi Angie. The dresses are amazing, aren't they? Given his design style, I wouldn't expect Yendi to be as understated as it is.
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 21, 2011 at 03:30 PM
thanks to you i've had night-dreams about finding yendi and inoui in antique stores . . .
Posted by: prpp | February 22, 2011 at 04:11 PM
Hmmm, prpp. Is this a recrimination, or are you glad about it? ;-) Yendi is easy to find on eBay for relatively cheap. Inoui can be found, too, but it tends to be pricey. You can give it a shot by ordering a small vial from theperfumedcourt.com. Good luck!
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 22, 2011 at 04:19 PM
Hm! I'm not sure this is my bag, but I like the advert and photos of the the dresses you've shared with us.... I've read on basenotes that this fragrance brings to mind Ivoire, which we have different appreciations of! But now I'm even more intrigued.... I can feel an ebay search coming on. Thanks for another most interesting post!
Posted by: Emma | February 23, 2011 at 04:22 PM
Hi Emma. It's got Ivoire's clean-but-interesting, almost soapy scent, yes, but it's definitely its own thing. The opening was really interesting, and my initial reaction was, "I've never smelled anything like this before... It started off "fizzy," which I loved. Give it a try just for the hell of it?
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 23, 2011 at 04:31 PM
I want to add this on my perfume collection. A friend of mine is using this and I find the fragrance very interesting. However I don't want to have the same scent with my friend. Thank you for sharing your post.
Posted by: perfumes | April 08, 2011 at 04:44 AM
One of my favorites perfume since I was 14 yrs old , is rare to find in store and is in my Christmas list . ,)
Posted by: Jacqueline | December 22, 2014 at 12:38 AM