My brother just got home from his France / Italy trip last night. He gave us a lot of goodies from this Italian pharmacy called Santa Maria Novella. I got a mint soap, there’s also pomegranate soap. He also brought with him perfumes, after shaves, mints and even a rejuvenating elixir which you’ll just add to cold water.

This was the first time I heard about Santa Maria Novella, but they’ve been around since 1612. In Florence, a short distance from the famous square by the same name, at number 16 of Via della Scala, stands one of the world’s oldest pharmacies: Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, with its historic, artistic and handicraft legacy, which has thrived for centuries in uninterrupted symbiosis with the city of Florence.

Many of the officina’s preparations have made history and have marked an epoch: the essences, as well as the famous and much requested perfumes, are still prepared to a large extent following the formulas studied in 1500 for Caterina De’ Medici.

Most of their products gives that feel good feeling. This is such a wonderful brand using conventional methods of preparation. I have yet to explore all their other items.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under perfume, cosmetics, beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.