Alora Festa

It’s gloomy February and we’re awaiting yet another messy, sleety snowstorm, so it seems like the perfect time to write about Alora Festa.

Anita gifted it to me, thinking I’d like it, and how right she was.  From the Alora website: “Festa, the Italian translation for holiday or party, was inspired by the incredible vacations Annie and Therese Gibbons, Alora Ambiance creators, spent together skiing in the Dolomites. After a long day at the slopes they would retreat to the comfort and warmth of the chalet and drink a delicious and fragrant glass of Vino Brule, an Italian mulled wine served with a cinnamon stick and slice of orange. The aroma of this memory is captured in festa’s key notes of burnt orange and cinnamon…”

And that pretty much sums it up – cinnamon and orange.  It’s like sunshine in a bottle.  It made me think of mulled wine the first time I smelled it, which makes sense now. A little does go a long way, although it’s neither bitter nor cloying.  A spritz or two in the air and I can still smell it hours later.

Oranges and Italy are inextricably linked for me, thanks to my multi-hour visit to I Profumi di Firenzi in Florence more than a decade ago, where I left with a tiny bottle of Arancia Dolce, one baby step closer to the perfumerie rabbit hole. And then shortly thereafter, reading perfume blogs, I had to hunt down Fendi Theorema.  The rest is (sweetly-scented) history.

Festa is available as a candle or diffuser for $50(ish) at places like BeautyHabit. The Alora website doesn’t show my 8 oz. room spray, which pops up periodically on eBay.  In fact … they had a partial bottle on there which I just bid on and won.  Pop down and leave me a comment if you want it and I’ll do a drawing.

 

  • cara says:

    I’m going to have to check this out. It sounds like a room scent (whether candle, spray or other form) that wouldn’t read as too feminine/sweet for my menfolk or too masculine for me to enjoy in the winter.

  • Musette says:

    I’m SO glad you are liking that, Missy! I sniffed it and said “OMG. MARCH!” lol! I got it from Beautyhabit, which always has such intriguing things on offer, bless ’em!

    Just wanted to tell you that we are having a gorgeous, cold, SUNNY day, so my SAD is at bay – but are expecting some snow/ice storm tonight. Sigh. Oh, well – it’s Winter in the Midwest, so no surprise, right?

    xoxo

    • March says:

      Yep, allegedly we’re about to get clobbered with some snow and ice. Of course since it’s DC everyone’s going on about it like the world’s ending, lol. I do anticipate gov’t being closed here, though.

  • maggiecat says:

    It’s in the 30’s and pouring rain here today in Dallas. For some reason the powers that be have turned on the air conditioning in my office so that frigid air is blowing across my desk. Something that smells like oranges and cinnamon and mulled wine sounds inexpressibly lovely right now. (P.S. you might also enjoy Fragonard’s Grain de Soleil, an edp that has both orange and cinnamon as major notes.)

  • cinnamon says:

    Fairly mild here. We had two major snowstorms last year — very unusual and everything stopped. Last time we had major snow was 2010. Am on a candle kick and have discovered that some of them smell great and have great throw before you light them and then they just sort of disappear (ie, no throw), but when you blow them out — voila — lots of scent again. Have a pomegranate one going at the moment.

  • Brigitte says:

    And somehow my happy face emoji was turned into a question mark….. how did that happen LOL ?

  • Brigitte says:

    We’re having crappy weather too. Yesterday I spent two hours shoveling snow and my body aches today. I could use some sunshine in a bottle right about now ?.

  • Shiva-woman says:

    Three weekends of snow and TORRENTIAL rainstorms that flooded our creek and took out a bridge and partially destroyed another one leave me craving lots and lots of mulled wine–and some “sunshine in a bottle” (of a different sort than the mulled wine). This sounds like a scent to lift the spirits.