The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Volare takes its name from Domenico Modugno's song "Nel blu dipinto di blu," known worldwide simply as Volare. The song became an anthem of Italian joy, written by a man from Polignano a Mare, the same cliffside town where a statue of him now stands, throwing its arms wide toward the horizon. Profumi di Polignano built this fragrance around that gesture: the grand balcony, the sea air, the feeling of throwing your arms wide and meaning it. The 2026 Extrait edition, signed by perfumer Jordi Fernández, translates the spirit of a festive Southern Italian moment into composition form. It is a celebration bottled, but not in the champagne sense. More like the second glass of something local, taken on a terrace with friends, when the sun is going down and nobody's checking the time.
The interesting choice here is oat. It is not a note you expect between frankincense and almond, and that is precisely why it works. Oat in perfumery reads as warm, slightly creamy, almost like the smell of raw dough or a grain that has been toasted low and slow. It softens the incense edge and gives the almond something milky to rest against, so the heart never gets austere. Frankincense does the heavy lifting as a bridge between the pepper-lavender opening and the gourmand-adjacent base. It is the structural note, the one that keeps a sweet-leaning composition from collapsing into pure dessert. Meanwhile the black pepper at the top is not aggressive.
The evolution
The opening arrives like a cold glass set down on sun-warmed stone: black pepper first, sharp and immediate, then lavender folding in underneath, cooling and slightly sweet. It reads herbal and clean in the early moments, a brisk Mediterranean morning that has not yet admitted the afternoon exists. The pepper brings a certain snap, a green-edged brightness that cuts through the lavender's soft herbalcy rather than competing with it. Soon after, frankincense and almond start to surface. The lavender does not vanish, but it steps back, letting the heart open like a window in a warm kitchen. This is where the fragrance finds its center: almond and oat lending a soft, almost edible warmth, frankincense threading through with that dry, resinous lift that keeps the sweetness honest.
Cultural impact
Volare occupies a particular niche within Italian perfumery, anchored by the Domenico Modugno reference that gives it immediate cultural resonance. The song "Nel blu dipinto di blu," known worldwide as Volare, connects the fragrance to a piece of Italian musical heritage recognized far beyond the country's borders. This association gives the composition a narrative weight that extends beyond its ingredients, linking it to themes of joy, freedom, and the kind of unguarded optimism that Modugno's performance captured.
