The perfume “Naxos”, as part of Italian perfume brand XERJOFF’s 1861 collection, has become one of the most famous and hyped scents of the last years. Right now, we see it at the no. 1 position for unisex scents on the parfumo platform.
When “Naxos” was launched in 2015, niche scents had not been so mainstream as today. It was much more difficult to get them. Today you find the brand XERJOFF in many very well-equipped perfume stores and looking at XERJOFF’s sponsoring, they are a high-luxury brand still, but not niche any more. “Naxos” made its way to the top of the unisex perfume rank list over the years, step by step. The perfume was no overnight success. Certainly, the increased interest in luxury perfumes helped XERJOFF to become a go-to brand for quality perfumes and “Naxos” to surpass all others in the ranking.
What we can learn from this extraordinary perfume is that outstanding quality sometimes inspires many different people who would not normally buy a perfume with the fragrance notes of “Naxos”.
The fragrance is ruled by herbal scent notes. It has the clearest olfactory association of a Mediterranean herbal and flower garden in close vicinity to a lemon or orange grove that I can imagine. Lavender dominates together with sweet tobacco, strongly supported by rosemary and thyme honey. I smell sage as well. There are also lemons and tangerine in the background.
I do not smell quite a few of the ingredients named on the XERJOFF website: no cinnamon and jasmine for me, also no vanilla and no tonka beans.
“Naxos” is like no other perfume. The mix of herbs and sweetness can be only compared to walking over a pure herb and flower meadow in the late afternoon sun, where all scents are intensified. The perfume does not smell artificial at all.
The colours of the perfume are lavender violet, honey and green.
XERJOFF writes on its website that “Naxos” represents Sicily. Naxos on Sicily is Giardini Naxos, a small town at the beach, whilst up in the hills the very famous village Taormina resides. The Naxos of old was the first city the ancient Greeks founded on Sicily almost 3000 years back. Sophistication on the one hand and straightforwardness and rural tradition on the other, so similar to the ancient Greek culture, are mirrored perfectly in the the perfume “Naxos”. A well-chosen name indeed.
The fragrance is a unisex scent, with a tendency to the feminine. My advice is to test it – normal categories for perfumes are lost here. No “nose” is named who created the scent – what a pity, but that’s how things go in the perfume world.
Sergio Momo, the founder of XERJOFF in 2007, made his brand into a worldwide synonym for Italian luxury perfumes over the last 10 years. He started out in Turin, together with Dominique Salvo. About the initial capital for the brand not much is known. Sergio Momo had worked in other fields than perfumery before he founded his company. On the company website quite some references are made to a perfume loving family and a wide travelled father who instilled the love for wonderful smells in Sergio Momo. It is quite normal to create a story for the buyers and XERJOFF makes no difference. I will not repeat much of it here, as I must confess, I do not think the story is very convincing.
It is better to concentrate on what Sergio Momo did after he had started XERJOFF. He bought the old “La Fabbrica di Profumi C. Casamorati” not too long after the initial launch. The Casamorati company had been founded in 1888 in Bologna and – for a time – was famous in Italy for scents and scented soaps. If indeed the original recipes had been used to start the brand new, or if master perfumers of a newer age did their job very well – Casamorati gave the world some of the most beautiful perfumes ever. I start to enthuse when I talk about “Lira” or “Italica” or “Dama Bianca”.
The perfumes Sergio Momo created under the Casamorati label are a class to themselves. There are only a few handfuls. They are ravishing beautiful fragrances and often gourmand.
The XERJOFF label has produced many more scents over the last years – most of the classics are a few years old, but some of the newer ones are also successful. The scent note oud plays a bigger role in the XERJOFF perfumes than in the Casamorati ones, but it is never obtrusive.
XERJOFF is now a major and important player in the luxury perfume market. That is good, because we do not have to be afraid that perfumes will suddenly no longer be available. I think the brand is growing too fast, but so far, the perfumes are all of high quality. Most of the fragrances are not as brilliant or innovative as “Naxos”, but that is not surprising. Real masterpieces not even Sergio Momo can produce every day.
The durability and silage of all the XERJOFF and Casamorati perfumes (that I know) are very good. The prices are – it seems to become the new standard – around 300€ per piece. At least sometimes one can get the perfumes with a good reduction, as they are also sold by perfumeries that do have incentive schemes for registered customers.
Sergio Momo celebrates his 60th birthday in 2024 and can look back on a great success story after he founded the brand in his 40s. There is absolutely no reason why the chosen path should not continue smoothly for the next 20 years or so, with similar results.
I wish him – in my own interest as perfume lover – creativity and truth to his origins always! Please bring more “Naxos” to the world, place exceptional scents over the quantity of new scents! The rest will be done by XERJOFF’s faithful customers.