Mendittorosa

Mendittorosa is an artistic perfume house from Naples, founded by Stefania Squeglia, who still shapes the concept and design of every scent. Its registered office is in Naples, and the trademark is licensed to a small Naples company, Le Monde. The house says it belongs to itself: no holdings or capital groups stand behind it, and it uses no distributors, agents or influencers. Its first line is Odori d'Anima, and one of its scents, ID, takes its name from Iddu, the local word for Stromboli, which the house calls her spiritual home.

Stefania Squeglia writes the idea and works with perfumers such as Amélie Bourgeois and Anne-Sophie Behaghel of Flair in Paris, and later Cristiano Canali. Every perfume is a new formula, finished by hand with Italian artists and craftspeople: clay caps by the Tuscan sculptor Alessandro Reggioli, wooden boxes and French glass bottles. The critic Luca Turin admired Le Mat in 2017, and the house notes that it got five stars in the 2018 edition of Perfumes: The Guide.

Mendittorosa has no shop of its own with open hours. Its atelier in Naples, at Villa Matarazzo on Via Tasso 480, opens for visits and shopping by appointment only; book on +39 347 6009653. A second atelier in Turin works the same way. A 100 ml Talisman extrait costs €250, a 9 ml pocket size €70, and a mini set of nine 1.8 ml vials €140, a cheaper way to smell the line. Try Le Mat first: it is the Talisman Luca Turin wrote about, a rose and patchouli chypre with clove and immortelle.