Oxymusc
A Lab on Fire (2014)

This smells just like the drydown of Acqua di Gio, just slightly less aquatic and muted. I see a 60mL bottle currently retailing for $120 - WAY overpriced for what this is. Disappears quickly, makes no statement, explores nothing new. Why is this a niche fragrance?

This isn't good. In my experience, Oxymusc is so light as to be almost completely unrecognizable for the first 3 hours after which it totally vanishes leaving nothing behind but the faintest hint of burnt rubber. I own this and when I first sprayed it on my arms I went, "Huh?! Seriously?!" I felt like I had been had. There is a teeny, tiny smell of candy-like, sweet oxygen that's not unpleasant necessarily, but it's soooo faint. And it smells like the late dry down of a teenage girl's perfume. Other people will not smell this on you unless you're having sex with them minutes after putting it on. You won't smell this on yourself either unless your nose is pressed up directly to your skin or you have special powers. Even then, it won't last. Rationalize this as minimalism, or simplicity, or fragrantic Zen but in the end it's just a really, really weak scent that is nowhere near the proximity of its $110 price tag. A slightly sweet, pleasant white musk with the volume turned so low as to be inaudible. If it's white musk you're after, go with The Bodyshop. I've been a fan of most of A Lab on Fire's offerings and Alberto Morillas is one of my favorite perfumers. I was really excited for this. However, both failed to deliver with Oxymusc. What a shame.

The note pyramid for Oxymusc is a study in creative writing with purpose to apply natural fragrance essence desciptives to totally synthetic chemically efficient ingredients that happen to have a nuance here and there of Lily of the Valley or Lavender etc. I don't really smell any of those notes.

When applying Oxymusc I smell two primary synthetic musk ingredients that layer one on top of the other. Put together these musks create exactly what I think of with the name "Oxymusc" - delightfully oxygenated musk. The opening "oxymusc" smells like pure bottled oxygen that is so ozonic and lighter-than-air it overtakes your olfactory chamber moving upward + outward in all directions, achieving a miracle of physics turning inside out until it warps around, full circle to meet the second musk note which takes over soon after. The second musk note smells of mellow pleasant non scented wonderment which I recognize as a basic musk ketone smell that is the very familiar pleasant musk used to erase odors in laundry detergent and aerosols for bad smells such as "Fabreze". Oxymusc could be described as an odor elimator and enhancer for the body as it creates such a warm pleasant non specific elevating aroma. At first I wanted to dismiss the fragrance for its common musk synthetic qualities, but after an hour or so I notice that it blends my my natural bodily aroma, and . . . it smells pretty good. I enjoy the opening oxy part which smells almost magically clean, and others react well to the rest of it on me. I like it but it is different.