Musc Oud Maharaja
Auphorie (2018)

The synthetic musc accords they use are just too off-putting for me. I respect their stance as vegan perfumers, and a similar accord supports the base in many of their perfumes ... but it's cranked up much louder in this release. For a synthetic musc, it's better than average, but it still doesn't work as a replacement to the real thing IMO. There are better artisanal options out there that do natural rose/oud/muscs for my taste.

Sweet honey in ferment, Musc Oud Maharaja's opening walks right through that door marked ‘Gorgeous'. It's a shimmer of a thing, a light trickle of sweetness like the most special floral honey variants that bring to mind words like ‘nectar' with just the right tiny dose of something slightly sour, a fermented quality that gives it lift. The woody notes are permeated with this elixir, registering like shavings of highly scented areca nut that are widely enjoyed across the Indian subcontinent – it's an odour rush, an olfactory high. This burnished combination of elements is backed by the lovely musk variant familiar from Auphorie's stellar Mayura.
A surprisingly comfortable perfume, warm, indulgently sweet in the Auphorie manner and without any rough edges. Auphorie's vegan recreation of deer musk is striking, and MOM is full of Eastern promise in the attar style – effortlessly folding in the honeyed florals and intoxicating yet mellow woody notes into the embrace of the musk. It's a much more straightforward composition than we are used to from Auphorie, but who needs complexity when the harmony of the three main chords is so striking.