Alessandro Gualtieri

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Biography and career

This biography was reviewed and corrected by Nasomatto in June 2026.

Alessandro Gualtieri is an Italian perfumer born in Milan (Italy) on 24 November 1967, into a working class family of butchers and gardeners, and now based in Amsterdam (Netherlands), where he has his lab and company office.

His perfumery training began in 1989 in Germany at Haarmann & Reimer, the historic fragrance and raw materials company based in Holzminden (Germany), which later became Symrise following its merger with Dragoco in 2003. There, he learned the chemical practice of fragrance composition. In the early years, he was mentored by Italian perfumer Arturetto Landi. He further expanded his craft through trips to the Middle East and Asia, including Oman, India and Yemen, where he explored traditional perfumery techniques and ingredients.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Gualtieri created fragrances for several fashion and consumer brands, including Versace, Helmut Lang and Diesel. During this period in the multinational fragrance industry, he felt constrained by management briefs, cost considerations and a general lack of creativity. This led him to envision a personal fragrance project free from mainstream market limitations. He chose Amsterdam as his base, where love had brought him at the time.

In 2007, Alessandro Gualtieri founded the perfume house Nasomatto in Amsterdam (Netherlands); its perfumes are made in Italy. The name, a play on the Italian words naso (nose) and matto (mad), signaled a deliberate break from industrial conventions. The first Nasomatto perfumes, Duro, Silver Musk, Narcotic Venus and Absinth, were released in 2007, and Hindu Grass followed in 2008. In 2009, he launched his most famous fragrance, Black Afgano, a cult composition developed after six years of research to translate the experience of high-quality hashish into olfactory form.

In 2014, Gualtieri founded a second fragrance project, Orto Parisi. The project is his garden that he planted, fertilized, cultivated and harvested. It is considered a more corporeal and conscious exploration of scent.

The name joins orto, Italian for vegetable garden, with that of his grandfather, Vincenzo Parisi, to whom the perfumer dedicates the project. As of 4 November 2026, the Orto Parisi website offers ten perfumes in 50 ml, from Bergamask to Risvelium, released in 2025.

Neither brand publishes official note pyramids. Gualtieri holds great respect for raw materials and believes that revealing them would limit and mislead the smelling process. In the past, perfume used to be a magic potion, and ingredients a well-kept secret. Gualtieri wants to maintain this approach with his perfumery.

Nicknamed The Nose, and sometimes referred to as The Mad Nose, Alessandro Gualtieri is the head and sole perfumer of both Nasomatto and Orto Parisi, which continue to operate independently. His style belongs to the tradition of auteur perfumery: dense, often provocative and highly personal. His work has since influenced part of a new generation of niche perfumery.

Besides his work as a perfumer, Gualtieri, under the alias The Nose, continues to be active with olfactory art projects.

Notable perfumes

Alessandro Gualtieri’s catalog runs mainly under Nasomatto (founded 2007) and Orto Parisi (founded 2014). Thirteen Nasomatto and ten Orto Parisi compositions signed by Alessandro Gualtieri, listed chronologically by house. The twelve Nasomatto perfumes still on sale have an Osmetheca entry; Hindu Grass is no longer in the catalog. For Orto Parisi, the accord follows the words of the house or of Parfumo, and reads “not published” when neither gives it.

Olfactory signature

Alessandro Gualtieri’s olfactory signature is a dense and intentionally polarizing perfumery, built on concrete materials inherited from his travels through the Middle East and Asia. His compositions favor resinous woods, ouds, incense, leathers and musks, with a recurring taste for narcotic or unsettling accords: cannabis, ambergris, smoked tobacco, heavy resins. This writing openly takes the counter-position of dominant commercial codes, in particular the radiant florals and gourmand sugars of mainstream perfumery.

The juices signed by Alessandro Gualtieri for Nasomatto are released as extrait de parfum, presented in compact 30 ml bottles, and those for Orto Parisi as parfum in 50 ml bottles. The whole packaging is made in Italy. The texture of the extrait is dense, often visually saturated, which reflects a high concentration of raw materials and a limited alcohol share.

One identity marker for Alessandro Gualtieri is the refusal to publish any official note list. The perfumer prefers to describe an intention, an emotion or an inspiration, and lets the wearer reconstruct the accord mentally. This stance cuts against the majority of niche perfumery, where the olfactory pyramid still structures product communication. It places Gualtieri in a lineage of openly claimed author perfumers, free from the marketing frame imposed by retailers and industrial classifications.

"I like the feeling that I’m losing control and I’m not the only one making the choice. I want my perfumes to have an existence of their own, not being enslaved solely by the meanings I gave."Alessandro Gualtieri (The Nose), Nasomatto Press Presentation

Key characteristics

Frequently asked questions

Nine questions that come up repeatedly about Alessandro Gualtieri, founder of Nasomatto and Orto Parisi, with their factual answers.

See also

Six Osmetheca resources to extend the reading on Alessandro Gualtieri, Nasomatto and Italian niche perfumery.