Orto Parisi

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History of the house

Orto Parisi was founded in 2014 in Amsterdam (Netherlands) by Italian perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri, already the founder of Nasomatto seven years earlier. The name refers to the vegetable garden of his grandfather, Vincenzo Parisi, in Puglia (Italy). Orto means garden in Italian. The house was conceived from the start as a more corporal, more animalic extension of the project he had begun with Nasomatto.

The biographical anchor is central to the brand discourse. Alessandro Gualtieri frequently recalls childhood summers spent at his maternal grandfather's home, among olive trees and the raw scents of sweat, soil, fallen leaves and overripe fruit. Orto Parisi claims this olfactory memory as the very matrix of the brand: bodies as gardens, body odors as mirrors of the soul.

The house launched in 2014 with a series of five extraits released simultaneously: Bergamask, Boccanera, Brutus, Stercus and Viride. Every flacon shares the same black textured stone silhouette, and the house publishes no official pyramid, following the same principle as Nasomatto. Manufacturing and packaging are handled in Italy. All perfumes are sold as extrait de parfum, in 50 ml flacons.

The catalog has since expanded in waves. Seminalis (2016) explored a lactonic and leathered floral register. Terroni (2017) translated the volcanic imagery of southern Italy. Megamare (2019) proposed an iodine, mineral marine. Cuoium (2021) revisited leather absolu. Risvelium (2025) extended the line into a resinous woody territory. Every release is awaited by an international community of niche author perfumery enthusiasts.

Orto Parisi operates as an independent perfume house, shares the Amsterdam atelier with Nasomatto and remains held by its founder. Distribution flows through a curated network of niche boutiques: Jovoy in Paris, Bloom Perfumery in London, Skins Cosmetics in Amsterdam, Twisted Lily in New York and Luckyscent in Los Angeles, with no department-store mass channels.

Olfactory signature

Orto Parisi writes a perfumery of raw materials, anchored in an animalic, earthy and corporal vocabulary. Compositions claim an organic, sometimes uncomfortable dimension: sweat, warm skin, raw leather, damp soil, sea salt, heavy resins. The house publishes very few official notes, as Nasomatto does, and prefers to name an intent or an olfactory memory over a top-heart-base list.

Every Orto Parisi release is sold as extrait de parfum, in 50 ml black textured stone flacons. The high concentration translates into a tenacious sillage and a contained yet persistent projection, closer in behavior to traditional Middle Eastern attar practice than to mainstream Western eau de parfum.

The central editorial gesture is the continuity with Nasomatto combined with a clear distinction. Where Nasomatto stays inside a brutalist conceptual register, Orto Parisi pushes the corporal and animalic dimension further. Stercus (2014) is the textbook case, with its leather-oud-musk accord that fully owns the Latin etymology of the name. Megamare (2019) shifted toward an ambery aquatic of unusual power and quickly became a reference point of the marine niche register.

"The human body is a garden. The scents of our body are the mirror of our soul."Alessandro Gualtieri, Orto Parisi Brand Statement

Key characteristics

Notable perfumes

The Orto Parisi catalog gathers around ten principal compositions signed by Alessandro Gualtieri as sole perfumer since 2014. Ten major releases are listed below in chronological order.

The house today

Orto Parisi remains an independent perfume house, held by its founder Alessandro Gualtieri with no parent group and no recorded acquisition. The atelier operates from Amsterdam (Netherlands), shared with sister house Nasomatto, and the brand controls distribution through a curated network of niche boutiques across Europe, North America and Asia, with no department-store mass channels.

The two houses share an atelier and a creative team while keeping distinct olfactory territories. Nasomatto, founded in 2007, stays anchored in the brutalist extrait register. Orto Parisi, founded in 2014, pushes the animalic and skin-driven dimension further. This pairing has become a frequent reference point in international fragrance press when the topic of author-driven independent perfumery comes up. Megamare (2019) sparked a viral moment on social media in the early 2020s, and helped recruit a new generation of buyers to the brand without breaking the underground positioning.

The cultural standing of Orto Parisi was built without conventional advertising and without celebrity endorsements. Stercus and Megamare circulate as word-of-mouth references among niche enthusiasts and are regularly cited in journalist round-ups of the most distinctive niche compositions of the 2010s and early 2020s. The house functions as a small, tightly controlled author project rather than a scaled lifestyle brand.

Frequently asked questions

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