Tonico Barbiere · Santal

There is something beautiful about old barbershops.

Not because they were luxurious, but because they had a soul.

Imagine walking through a quiet street in Florence sometime in the 1930s. You open the heavy wooden door of a neighbourhood barber shop. A small brass bell rings. The room smells of freshly whipped shaving cream, lavender, citrus, clean towels and polished wood. Straight razors are laid out carefully. Brushes are drying by the window. Morning sunlight filters through the glass, making the steam above the shaving bowl glow for just a moment.

Now imagine something impossible.

Imagine that this entire barbershop was built from sandalwood.

The barber’s chair is sandalwood. The cabinets are sandalwood. The shaving bowl sits on a sandalwood counter. Even the handles of the shaving brush and straight razor have been carved from beautifully aged sandalwood. Over decades, the wood has absorbed the warmth of the room and slowly filled the air with its soft, creamy aroma.

That was the picture in my mind while creating Tonico Barbiere – Santal Edit.

I didn’t want sandalwood to feel like another note in the formula. I wanted it to become the place itself.

The fragrance opens exactly like you would expect from a classic Italian barbershop. Fresh citrus, aromatic lavender, herbs and subtle spices create that unmistakable feeling of walking into a place where shaving is still treated as a craft.

But slowly, almost without you noticing, the sandalwood begins to take over.

Not in an aggressive way. It simply starts wrapping itself around everything. The freshness becomes softer. The woods become creamier. The whole fragrance feels warmer, calmer and more comforting, as though you’ve been sitting in that old barber’s chair for an hour, talking about life while the room quietly breathes around you.

By the end, what stays isn’t just sandalwood.

It’s the memory of that room.

Tonico Barbiere – Santal Edit is my way of imagining a barbershop where every piece of wood has a story to tell, and every breath reminds you why some traditions never need to be modernised.