The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Paloma y Raices arrived in 2017 from Maurizio Cerizza, the nose behind this particular composition. The fragrance takes its name and imagery from Mexico, from Frida Kahlo as 'little dove,' from lush flowers in hair, from roots that break concrete and rise again. The brand's own text frames it as freedom: the deep breath of life in Eden, the fecund embrace of mother earth, the journey within yourself. On skin, the opening reads bright and dewy, where basil and a cool fig leaf lend a crushed-greenery crispness that settles into the warmth of amber underneath. As the hours pass, the composition deepens, with patchouli's earthiness and tonka's soft resin wrapping around that initial green flicker, leaving behind a scent that feels rooted rather than fleeting.
The composition earns that mythology. Green notes and peppermint open with vegetative force, the kind of brightness that reads as living tissue rather than aromachemical shorthand. Tuberose and ylang-ylang in the heart bring a heady white-floral narcotic that the brand pairs with coffee and tobacco, treating fragrance flowers not as decoration but as architecture. The base layers Peru balsam and tolu balsam together with vanilla and tonka, a quadruple balsam-amber platform that gives the scent its persistence and its warmth. There's an unusual balance here between the green-cool top and the balsamic-warm bottom, and the heart is what stitches them together.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are cold and sharp. Peppermint leads, green notes flare underneath, and grapefruit lifts the whole thing toward something almost bracing, closer to mint tea than to cologne. Then the green steps back. Tuberose comes forward first, heavy and creamy, and ylang-ylang rounds it out, but the shift into the heart isn't floral alone; coffee and tobacco arrive almost immediately, giving the middle phase a bitter-warm undertow that keeps the florals from drifting into sweetness. The coffee note smells less like a beverage and more like the carbon edge of something nearly burnt. The drydown is where the whole composition finally rests. Peru balsam and tolu balsam fuse into a single resinous warmth, vanilla sweetens without syrup, and tonka bean adds a powdery almond haze. The greens are gone, the florals are ghosts, and what's left is amber-balsamic and close to skin. On fabric the next morning, the vanilla and tonka are still detectable, soft and faintly nutty, more like the memory of a fragrance than a fresh application.
Cultural impact
Paloma y Raices sits within a current wave of Italian niche perfumery that draws on strong visual and cultural reference points rather than abstract minimalism. Its Mexican inspiration, drawn from Frida Kahlo imagery and the poetry of roots breaking through, gives it a recognizably narrative identity that sets it apart from more generic florals or woody compositions. Wearers who gravitate to it tend to favor the unusual pairing of cooling green with dense amber, where basil and fig leaf lift a base of patchouli, tonka, and benzoin into something that reads both vegetal and resinous at once.
The House
HomoelegansHomoelegans is an independent Italian niche fragrance house founded in 2015 by Francesco Gini and Maurizio Piazzi. The brand emerged with a clear mission: to build something innovative and contemporary outside the conventions of mainstream perfumery. From its inception, Homoelegans rejected the atelier model that dominates the industry, choosing instead to present fragrances as complete artistic statements without individual perfumer attribution. This approach positions the house as a unified creative vision rather than a vehicle for star perfumers. The collection spans five distinct scents released between 2015 and 2019, each bearing a title that suggests literary depth or philosophical inquiry rather than conventional marketing language. The name Homoelegans itself hints at the brand's underlying theme: an exploration of human refinement, beauty, and the elegance inherent in human experience.
The Creator
Maurizio CerizzaCerizza's work reflects the discipline of the Roure method he absorbed early in his career. He favors working with natural materials, drawing on his family's deep expertise in extraction and distillation to inform every creation.
