Mugler Cologne Fly Away (2018)
by Thierry Mugler

Crisp grapefruit. Sweet herbal note. Has a cedar vibe to it, if you ask me, after I've worn it awhile. Very tame. I get no "weed" note, here. None, whatsoever. Tried and quickly forgotten.

After a quick jolt of pineapple, Fly Away breaks out into a coconut-infused fruit punch, with a pinch of bile to make it especially tropical (you know how papaya and other tropical fruits have a bile undertone?). It gets less fruity with time, ending up as coconutty Malibu rum.

I personally don't like the bile note at all, but I can see how it falls in line with Mugler's playfulness, and also how it goes a long way to cut the sweet fruit overload of the topnotes. But given all that, I'd recommend L'Artisan's Ananas Fizz (while it's still available) or Malin + Goetz's Dark Rum as vomit-free alternatives.

Oh wow! Mugler Cologne Fly Away (yellow) has a really dense, sweet-sour quality that does smell like grapefruit, though the hemp note twists it up somewhat to make it more like a slice of pineapple cake! I appreciate the quality of Fly Away as it achieves something that I partly find with several citrus-ginger scents, but now without the spice.

It also reminds me of a heavily sugared glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade. It doesn't come across as cheap nor contrived; it is fresh, relaxing, and pleasant, great for a warm summer day's casual outing. (Others may wonder, who's carrying Country Time? ;^>)

Could "C" stand for cistus? That could explain that honeyish sweet quality that is hallmark for this flanker. Nonetheless, Fly Away is a fraternal twin to the new Mugler Cologne (green), which itself is a reformulation of the once-mossy original from 2001!

Bravo, Mr. Mugler. :-)