Beauty Care: Mazzolari Lui Perfume Review

Mazzolari Lui Eau de Toilette starts with the darker facets of patchouli with a salty-sweet resinous quality in the background, but it quickly shifts into a more animalic fragrance that was fuzzy, musky, and leathery with tarry smoke at times.

While aromatic sandalwood and cedar, along with softer resins, were added within the first hour, it wasn’t until four hours in that the animalic notes were softened noticeably, so it is best suited for someone who is looking for something with stronger animal musk and leather.

Lui Notes

It is described as a being a “patchouli” scent “aided by sandalwood and cedar.” These are the notes:

top notes: patchouli
heart notes: sandalwood, cedar, melange of flowers
base notes: citrus, spices

What does Lui Smell Like?

It opened with a musky, dark, and mentholated patchouli with saltiness that teased along the edges. The muskiness has subtle, animalic tones to it, almost leathery but softer and far plusher, almost fuzzy. It continued to become more animalic and musky with a touch of sandalwood peeking through after five minutes of settling on my skin. Tendrils of tarry smoke wafted across a musky, animalic, leathery composition that gave it more edge and made it darker.

For the first 45 minutes, Lui was a swirl of soft, supple leather, muskiness, and smoky woods. The animalic muskiness dialed back slightly after about 90 minutes, and the patchouli, sandalwood, and cedar came through more noticeably. I would still have described it as a heavily animalic, musky and leather scent with a tinge of golden amber with soft, woody undertones.

It wasn’t until the third hour where the animalic notes were more diffused, softer, and also weakened, which enabled spiced, woody resins to come through with more clarity. From there and into the drydown (about five hours in), it became more ambered, sweeter, and woodier without any leather or muskiness–the animalic tones had diminished entirely.

Longevity

It lasted for six hours until it was a skin-scent and about 12 hours before it was quite difficult to detect on my skin. The sillage and projection were moderate for the first two to three hours, and then they dropped and wore more closely from there.

Personal Notes

These are more subjective feelings based on what I like (or don’t like) in a perfume as well as considering the fragrance against other perfumes I own and love.

I was quite surprised at just how animalic this ended up being, which is a type of fragrance I don’t mind at all, so I enjoyed wearing it. I feel like I have a few others in this category, though, so it didn’t completely pull me in at this moment.

Testing Methodology

For testing, I used 1/3 of a 0.7ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.

I purchased my sample in February 2022; fragrances are known to be reformulated over their lifetime, so be mindful of when a review was made, e.g. a review from 2010 may not reflect what the same-named perfume smells like in 2022.

Availability

Lui is available for $200/100ml.

If possible, I highly recommend trying a fragrance before purchasing a full bottle because fragrance can wear differently just because of skin chemistry. Skin chemistry can effect not just the longevity of a fragrance but also what notes are prominent or hidden.

Lui Samples

We recommend the following retailers for purchasing decanted samples (typically 0.7ml to 2ml in size). This is a fuller list, so individual availability may depend on inventory.