Byredo M/Mink: (not so) Initial Impressions

I'm copying my review from Fragrantica since this frag is not in the directory here yet.

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I don't find the opening of this to be revolting at all. Perhaps different noses have radically different takes on adoxal. To my nose, the opening is smooth and sweet, a dark and inky floral. Adoxal allegedly smells of lily of the valley in dilution, and I can sense a lily type sweetness and smoothness in the opening that joins forces with the immediately noticeable honey note (a dark and unsweetened honey as mentioned by others) and the equally dark patchouli note.

The patchouli deserves special mention in this fragrance because it is very dark and has that typical patchouli earthiness and dryness to it while simultaneously not being so thick and full bodied as natural patchouli oil. The body that is cut out of the patchouli note is filled with the notes of incense and honey, and a pine-like note that I believe comes from the frankincense/labdanum duo(I know it's not listed, but I sense a strong natural labdanum note here).

As one who works on my own blends with only natural oils, I don't find M/Mink to be 'disgusting', 'dreadful' or even all that dirty. It's just very natural in a way that few scents are - it leaves intact some of the rough edges of these natural notes. Thus, it's more challenging than many scents around, but I think that some of the other reviewers allegations (eg: worst scent ever) are to be taken with a grain of salt. At least, don't let those sway you from so much as trying the scent.

The scent isn't strictly linear but conversely there are no radical shifts in its development. As the sweet, dark and inky opening fades the heart presents more of the incense and labdanum combo. The incense and labdanum are smoldering - warm with hints of smoke. At all times the fragrance has a dark and billowy veil of patchouli and ink enveloping it. The honey/beeswax flits in and out of perception. It too is always there, but at times it is shrouded by the incense, at other times it and the incense unite into a truly beautiful and downright sultry, sexy accord.

My only qualm is the pine-like aspect persists a bit longer, or at least a bit more prevalently than I would prefer. I'm assuming this was done to keep the texture from becoming too smooth or gentle, but it occasionally crosses over from being a textural counterpoint into being marginally grating. A minor qualm though and one I can live with.

I should note that my girlfriend immediately took to the scent. She loved it on me from my first sampling, and she got a chance to smell it just moments after application - so not everybody finds the opening appalling!

There's really no other scent I can compare this too but for a rough idea of what it smells like, imagine a cross between Kouros (the honey/incense elements) and Rive Gauche PH (the thickness and dark patchouli/anise element). I wouldn't necessarily say that M/Mink is barbershop-y, but it has that same kind of thickness to it, and one of my first thoughts on my first sampling was the distant relation to Rive Gauche PH.

Was it the smell itself that made you want to vomit, or was it just something in it chemically that evoked the nausea for you?

It's a bit odd, I admit and I think my initial impressions need to be amended to mention just how strong the labdanum is in the latter half of the fragrance - the "amber" note here is not your conventional amber at all, it's labdanum, with some extra labdanum on the side. No sweeteners at all except the honey but this honey is very raw and unsweet. I wish it were a tad sweeter and a tad stronger in the base, personally.

For those who've tested this - is there anything else you've tried that's remotely similar? This is close to grail material for me (which I would imagine would be a honey/incense blend that is dark with perhaps some florals) but a few elements (the piney element I mentioned in the OP, for one) bring it back down to only a 4 star level for me.

I should also mention that my first time smelling it I found it rather spikey, sharp, and generally gross. Not disgusting, but not pleasant, either. It was only after the third or so time smelling it that it really started to click - my brain could now properly interpret the adoxal heavy opening and could also smell the rest of the fragrance. I think this scent overdoses on a few chemicals and that many people upon their first smelling will fixate on one of those chemicals and not be able to fully or properly interpret the scent.

It's funny that you mention Askew because I've just revisted that and am really, really falling for it now. It's a bit overtly synthetic, which I don't mind in and of itself except occasionally its spikiness actually stings my nose a bit, but the images it evokes and the kind of kaleidoscopic color synesthesia I get from Askew (this bottle depicts the colors I get from it very well: http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/H...licate-24.html , except I also get some light blues, more yellows, and even a bit of reds/maroons from the cardamom while it lingers ) make it irresistibly enchanting to my nose.

I don't get metallic bilge water (thankfully!). I wonder what is reading that way - if it's just a chemical or if it's perhaps the kind of stony/metallic incense note and how it is interacting with things.

As I said I wish the pine was reduced - but after just scratching another (yes, I've done this before ) huge square of ink on a piece of paper and sniffing it, there is a sort of pine-like aspect to the smell. And a metallic facet, along with a bit of a rosy facet and that more generalized "dark, inky note" (gotta love circular olfactory descriptions ). So, conceptually I see why the pine is there, but still, I wish it wasn't.

For those DIYers out there, the pine and dark inky aspect can be closely replicated with small amounts of valerian essential oil. And yes, I suppose there is a hint of that valerian dirty-sock quality in M/Mink, too. Hmm, ok, now I'm starting to see why one might think bilge water . Ah well, I still like it!

I have smelled the same quality in Chembur and Baudelaire, for sure. Not so much Fantastic Man, although maybe I just didn't notice it because the general character of the scent is so different.

Another note I tend to pick up on in multiple Byredos, M/Mink and Chembur, especially, is the odd woody/balmy note of copaiba balsam (also known as copahu balm - and a note that is very present in Kilian's Pure Oud).

No worries. Skarb does make more sense as a comparison though. Whatever note it is that this and Skarb (and Secretions Magnifique) share, does not bother me at all. I should probably mention that I own a bottle of Skarb and besides finding it wholly unique, find it to be one of my favorite scents to wear for late summer/early autumn evenings.

There are two more scents that I also believe share the note you mention, and I'd be curious to hear everyone's opinion on them if they've tried them: Reflection Man and Harrods for Him by Bond. Maybe it's not the same note, but I think it might be - it's a cold and kind of metallic note that is kind of waxy. (my guess is it's some kind of synthetic note meant to evoke orris). It's for sure in Reflection Man and Harrods For Him (in fact, in the Harrods for Him it's about the only note that remains on the blotter after a few days) and it's definitely in Secretions Magnifique as well (but no, it's not the wet dog note). A lot of people seem to find Reflection sickening or a weird mix of sweetness and, er, as some have said, "death" - which further convinces me they do in fact share this same chemical.

Alfarom, I just checked your wardrobe - do you still own M/Mink? A full bottle?

Alfarom, if you're ever interested in letting go of that bottle, give me first dibs. A half bottle sounds just right anyhow - I'd never need 100ml of this stuff.

As I'm getting deeper into the base of this scent, I once again get a bit of an odd smell. Slightly fishy. Ok, yeah, I get the bilge comment now. Octavian also mentioned caviar in his review of this.

It's a scent that I vacillate on from moment to moment, sometimes loving it, sometimes finding it a bit gross (but not wholly bad by any means) and sometimes finding it downright sultry or sexy. My biggest fear with the scent are the questions, "What do others think of me when they smell this on me? How does it hit their nose?!?"

In what manner is it cloying to you Laph? Is it too sweet - or just too musky?

Interesting. Now that you talk about carpets outgassing, I can kind of smell it here. But perhaps that's just the power of suggestion, because as I've been wearing it since I started this thread, I primarily smell something that I hadn't mentioned in the original review: carbonized wood. A sort of stark and woody ashiness. A fire pit the morning after the fire.

Also, I used to think the honey faded and all that was left in the late dry down was the incense and musk notes, but yesterday at about the 11 hour mark I was getting a very strong and very realistic clover honey note. I pulled out a bottle of clover honey to compare - it was dead on. What was really odd about it is that with some sniffs I'd get this honey note, front and center, and other times I'd smell the still-lingering musk or the incense. It's multi-faceted and different facets present themselves with each sniff - and this is true throughout the life of the fragrance but for me, moreso near the end of its development. That is something quite unique in perfumery, imo. A lot of the Humiecki & Graef scents achieve this kind of multi-faceted linear progression but the facets tend to blur into a singular identity within a few hours. M/Mink reverses the progression and is mostly a singular identity and then begins to fragment as it dries down.

Also, late in the dry down I do notice an animalic musk that - on some sniffs, just as the honey - is almost stark naked in its presentation. I've never smelled this particular note so clearly before except in one composition - Monk by Michael Storer. In Monk you smell that musk in the top notes, nearly standing alone. Here, I was picking it up clearly on the occasional sniff around the 10-12 hour mark.

As I wear it more, I've found that the 'scratchiness' of the pine has been reduced - now it's more of a dark piney wood quality - dark pine wood that is at least partially carbonized. The blackness of that carbon note is entrancing and the only other scent that has that particular quality that I've experienced is Al Oudh. Al Oudh dresses the note up more, though, and it makes Al Oudh easier to digest.

I do detect the sweetness you talk about - to me it's totally in the form of honey. I find it sweet but in the natural and real sense, which keeps it balanced (just as I don't find sniffing a jar of clover honey to be too sweet, only sweet). Scents like Chergui however, how further sweeten the honey with iris and the like, push into the cloying territory for me. I do see though how someone could find M/Mink cloying, and unlike many of the posters above, I do get sweetness in the scent. It's just juxtaposed against some of the most intense musk and deep pine (more like a deep trunk/pine sap note, along with that airy hint of carbonization I mentioned before) notes I've encountered.

Just picked up a 10ml decant of this on eBay, as I'm really loving it for winter so far.

Will report back after I give it some more wearings.

Wore this again yesterday and got a compliment 20 - no, that's not a typo! - yes, twenty hours after application. And I was a few feet from the person giving me the compliment. Talk about longevity!

I absolutely love this stuff. Sometimes - momentarily - I think it stinks.. I get a weird smell from it like dirty feet (is that valerian I detect in here?) but then that fades and I get a wonderful inky dark honeyed incense. I think I smell an oud note, too - or at least, it has that same inky dark note that is present in large quantities in Kilian's Pure Oud (actually, my guess is that it's the copaiba balsam along with some guaicwood).

WildThingy, I read that Rien, amongst many other ingredients, has an overdose of galbanum (and aldehydes, too). At first I thought I liked Rien but after a few wearings I quickly found it to be too over the top for me. It got a bit urinuous on my skin, too.

Found it:

An interview with Antoine Lie:

http://graindemusc.blogspot.com/2011...is-beauty.html

Monkeybars - try the Valerian SC02 from Liberty Natural. It's solid, and a pain in the ass to work with, but it gets rid of the evergreen qualities of the original, tones down the dirty-sock note, but keeps a sort of indolic dirtiness to it. I use it in small amounts as an 'all natural civet substitute' - it's the closest thing I've found in the natural realm.