Reviews of Lux (2006)
by Mona di Orio

The rich, sweet citrus opening is lovely, but also rather "perfumey" in a familiar way that I can't quite place. Although there's no lavender note listed, I'm reminded of Jicky, minus the civet.

As the scent develops a distinct powdery note emerges to underpin the heart, which remains sweet and fruity, with an overlay of gentle wood notes. A very light and delicately balanced vanillic accord comes to the surface as time passes, integrating with the powdery note in a velvety, yet somehow very bright base.

Eventually the sweet fruit and vanilla drive Lux into a candy-like domain, without enough dry notes for my nose. The powdery vanilla and wood drydown seems a bit conventional after the rest of the trip, but it's certainly pretty and still very well-balanced. Not as daring or original as Nuit Noire, but a nice scent nonetheless. I think I'd like it better on a woman than on myself, by the way.

Beautiful citrus opening – rich, semi-sharp, full-bodied, lemony; I think the high quality comes from the use of bitter orange and Petitgrain; the lemon note is full, rich, and excellent and not at all “lemon drop” at this point. This is about as opulent of a citrus opening as I’ve experienced. In my mind, citrus doesn’t normally lend itself to opulence, but, in the case of Lux, “opulent” is the proper term. But my success with this fragrance ends with the opening. I find the movement from the citrus top to the wood middle is a bit clumsy: It spends too much time in that no man’s land between the diminishing of the citrus top and the recognition of the woody / powdery middle. The citrus handles its decrescendo properly (it never completely disappears through the run of the scent) but the woods don’t seem to know how to operate on my skin. The woods develop nicely on paper, but the quality doesn’t transfer when the fragrance hits my skin – I lose about everything except the remnants of the opening citrus. On paper, the beautiful amber / musk drydown is going strong twenty hours after application. On my skin I have never achieved a decent performance of the middle and base notes through seven wearings – the fragrance is gone in an hour. Mona di Orio Lux just doesn’t like me.

Lux was the MdO scent I was least interested in but decided to give it a try anyway. The opening is pure lemon soap, quite lovely, but that stage soon passes giving way to powdery vanilla notes, which give way to something woody and slightly bitter (vetiver, I guess). Lux is interesting, and a quality scent, like all MdO scents, but... neither yay nor nay.