Potentino Profumò EDP

Read the full castle lockdown creation story of this perfume in Susan’s personal essay

Potentino Profumò EDP is the scent inspired by the hike I did every day during my 2020 Tuscan artist residency turned COVID lockdown. The scent and silk map of the walk that inspired it are currently exclusively available in limited edition release via Castello di Potentino in Seggiano, ITALY. The luminous herbal scent is reminiscent of my evening hikes at this ancient castle nestled in the biodiverse ecosystem of Monte Amiata, an extinct volcano in Tuscany, at the golden hour.

In early 2020, I was invited to be an artist-in-residence at Castello di Potentino, an ancient castle in Tuscany. My residency quickly became a lockdown in what was then the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Uncertain whether I’d be able to return home to see my family again, I sought solace in daily “scent walks” in the castle’s surrounding hills. I had gone to Potentino with the intention of capturing its environmental bouquet in the form of an artisanal perfume.

Suddenly my project, which began as an homage to Potentino’s biodiversity as well as a loving protest to climate change, became a godsend of mindful encounters with nature. Stumbling upon aromatic

treasures in the wild stilled my worrying mind and quickened my senses, interjecting long days of uncertainty with bright moments of happiness and presence.

Each day I’d compose, through handheld bouquets of harvested plants, a rough draft of my perfume formula. I finished it days before the US State Department ordered Americans abroad to return home. Two years later, I returned to Potentino to map out my scent walk so that others could escape to Tuscany—in a voyage real or imagined—and stumble upon the buried magic of this castle’s hills.