Grandfather's Garden: Where Orto Parisi Comes From

As a child, Alessandro Gualtieri spent his summers in his grandfather Vincenzo Parisi's garden in Puglia. Among olive trees and vegetable beds, he experienced a world of unfiltered scents - earth, sweat, decay, blossoms. Everything at once, everything real.

Decades later, having already created one of niche perfumery's most exciting brands with Nasomatto, he returned to that garden in his mind. In 2014, he founded Orto Parisi - "Parisi's Garden". But the garden he means isn't the one in Puglia. It's the human body itself.

"Our body must be experienced as a garden and we must look at each part of this body as a plant that exudes its odors."

• Alessandro Gualtieri, founder of Orto Parisi

The core idea: body parts that carry stronger scents collect more soul. Strong smells have become unpleasant only because civilisation represses our natural animalism. Orto Parisi aims to rehabilitate exactly that animalism.

Attraction and Repulsion

When Alessandro Gualtieri is asked to describe his two brands in a few words, he says: "Nasomatto - No Limits. Orto Parisi - Attraction and Repulsion." That sums it up rather well.

Where Nasomatto experiments and pushes boundaries, Orto Parisi goes one step further into discomfort. The fragrance names speak for themselves: Stercus means faeces, Seminalis alludes to semen, Brutus is the brutal traitor. No marketing team in the world would have approved this. But Gualtieri is his own marketing team.

"I'm always busy searching a contrast in my creations. This means that I do not exclude any ingredients whether they could be considered pleasant or repulsive."

• Alessandro Gualtieri, in Hunger Magazine

All Orto Parisi fragrances are formulated as Extrait de Parfum - the highest concentration level. They come in minimal 50ml bottles, designed as simply as the philosophy is radical. The longevity is legendary: some fragrances last over 24 hours on skin.

Five Orto Parisi Fragrances to Get You Started

The collection is concise, but every fragrance is a statement. These five showcase the range - from accessible entry points to genuine challenges.

The Future Belongs to the Garden

Gualtieri has announced he will focus entirely on Orto Parisi, no longer creating new Nasomatto fragrances. The brand is his most personal project - an olfactory manifesto about authenticity and the beauty of the unpolished.

"It always has to be something emotional. If it becomes an ornament it won't work."

• Alessandro Gualtieri, in Hunger Magazine

In a perfumery world that often defaults to pleasantness and mass appeal, Orto Parisi remains a counterpoint. The fragrances challenge, provoke, and divide opinions. That's exactly what makes them so fascinating.

Why You Should Test Orto Parisi

Orto Parisi fragrances can't be understood on a screen. The extreme concepts, the animalic notes, the radical longevity - all of this needs to happen on skin. What seems provocative on a paper strip often develops into something surprisingly beautiful on warm skin.

A sample box is practically essential with Orto Parisi: test different fragrances at home, observe how they develop over hours, and find out which garden suits you.