If you’re looking for a permanent vacation to Italy, we’ve got some sweet-smelling suggestions for you.
Two new perfumes from Jordan Samuel Scent will transport you to Sicily and Capri in Italy without ever leaving your living room sofa.
The unisex scents are sold by New York City’s Jordan Samuel Pacitti and his eponymous Jordan Samuel Skin. Pacitti, a former professional ballet dancer and esthetician, worked with famous Italian perfumer Luca Maffei to create the scents (more on their collaboration below).
So, just what do the perfumes smell like? Once we describe them, we’ll have you booking your flight to southern Italy in no time–and spraying on the scents.
“Our fragrances really are a transportive vacation in a bottle,” Pacitti says.
Cortile Dolce and Ferragosto
Cortile Dolce, which means Sweet Courtyard in English, brings together sweet, soft, and citrusy scents that define Sicily–a region that Pacitti has gotten to know through several visits all around the island.
Cortile Dolce’s scent notes include:
–Lime leaf (Sicily is famous for its citrus)
–Jasmine, which fluorishes on the island
–Cedarwood, a grounding scent you may experience along seaside cliffs
–A touch of sweetness, which promotional info for Cortile Dolce describes as “a taste of la dolce vita” and “silk-spun notes of almond granita and brioche buns”
–White amber, which “hints at the spirit of the Italian isle”
Then, there’s Ferragosto, named for the Italian national holiday on August 15 that leads many Italians to their famous beaches. The fragrance is inspired by the island of Capri near Italy’s Amalfi Coast.
With Jordan Samuel Scent’s lovely Ferragosto, here’s your scent combination:
–Fig skin and sap, just like those from the gardens of Villa San Michele in Capri
–Apricot, famous on the island, and “juicy, sun-drenched, and just shy of too sweet”
–Cardamom, the famous spice that adds structure to the fragrance without stealing the show
–Cut grass accord, described as “the hum of heat rising from the terraced hillsides near Chiesa di San Michele with summer, like an anchor clinging to the air”
–Sandalwood, wrapping it all up in a soft-focus haze
The Scent Story and the Italian Connection
You can probably feel Pacitti’s passion for Italy just from the descriptions above. Yet what led him on his Italy scent journey?
Pacitti had aIways been fascinated by fragrances. In his early adulthood, he was a ballet dancer living and traveling around the world for his career. After several years of dancing and putting on and removing makeup for shows, his skin became more sensitive.
After two serious injuries, he realized that it was likely time to bow out of his dancing career and pivot to something new. He had always loved the beauty industry and its associated products, which led him toward skin care. He earned his aesthetic license and starting practicing hands-on within the skincare world.
Pacitti decided to start his own skincare line, which led to the creation of Jordan Samuel Skin. His cleansers, serums, eye gels, and more often have names that give a nod to his ballet background, such as The Performance Eye Gel and The Matinee Gel Moisturizer.
That inches us closer to the fragrance and Italy connection.
“I used to make fragrances myself, but I always wanted to work with a perfumer,” Pacitti tells Italy Dreams. “I knew that in addition to the skincare line, we one day were going to have fragrance or fragrances.”
Yet after several attempts, it wasn’t happening just yet.
In 2022, after Pacitti and his partner returned to the U.S. from a trip to Italy, they brought with them several half-ounce fragrance samples that were, incidentally, mostly created by master perfumer Luca Maffei.
Realizing that Maffei was the common demonitator for the favorite fragrances he had purchased, Pacitti reached out to him online to discuss a potential collaboration. He didn’t hear back.
Meanwhile, with momentum still behind him, Pacitti worked with other Italian contacts to get his Italian-inspired fragrances off the ground. As an Italian-American himself, Pacitti has fallen hard for the country’s beauty and spirit, leading to many trips there.
“I wanted the perfumer to add their essence and bring it to life with what I had said,” Pacitti says. He continued to work with his contacts to get the scent combinations just right, although he initially was not in contact with the perfumer.
As the fragrances continued to evolve, Pacitti eventually realized who was working with his contacts to develop them–Luca Maffei.
“It was truly a serendipitious-like moment,” Pacitti says. The two are now collaborators and friends.
Cortile Dolce became available via the Jordan Samuel Skin website in December 2024, and Ferragosto became available in October of this year (2025). The fragrance is available for sale in the U.S.
A Love for Italy: Pacitti’s Picks
As evident through this story, Jordan Samuel Skin’s Cortile Dolce and Ferragosto are both a testament to business expansion as well as love letters to Italy–a place he actually had not traveled to prior to 2012.
“I’ve been all over Asia, to Turkey, Belgium, France, and Denmark, but it was so strange that for being Italian-American and wanting to go to Italy, I just thought, ‘We’ll get there one day.’”
And that he did. Here’s how he describes the country now:
“Something that’s always fascinated me with Italy is it’s such a small country, but then from top to bottom, you can experience so many different dialects and types of food cultures and other patterns…It’s just so wildly different and extreme and beautiful. That also is why outside of being personally obsessed with it, I feel like it’s the most beautiful muse because each area tells its own story through food, scent, and the people.“
With Pacitti’s extensive travels throughout the country, we asked him for a few of his favorite travel locations:
—Rome, which he calls his “absolute favorite place in the world.” He and his partner have vacationed there but also have worked there for several weeks at a time and know the city well.
—Sicily, where he had a great time in southeastern Sicily but then later visited Palermo on the west coast and realized that both areas of the island were amazing
—The Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily, which he visited with his partner and his parents. “We all want to go back,” he says. “It’s clean, beautiful, not busy, and affordable.” Plus, there was some terrific seafood.
—Torino/Turin, the northern city where his perfumes are manufactured
Check out Jordan Samuel Skin’s product line here, and check out his fragrance shere.
Follow Jordan Samuel Skin on Instagram (@jordansamuelskin) or TikTok (@jordansamuelskin).
Italy Dreams 