Mxxx.

It is a decent and complex incense vanilla, gourmand incense or woody amber however you wish to classify it, it can be all those. It has impressed me with its very smooth blending but ultimately I found it a little boring for my personal tastes and derivative of one fragrance I have in my collection and another I find it similar to. I have Reyane Tradition Insurrection (the original yellow liquid in the crassly novel bottle) a strong, spicy, resinous and smokey vanilla that smells almost exactly like the vanilla base in this one. And then there is Les Indemodables Musc Des Sables, another Lie creation that is a sweet and powdery ambergris affair with earthy nuance which reminds me of the Ambergris half of this fragrance. For me this is wearable, although I can’t get over the fact that I’m learning that spicy, vanilla, incense fragrances make me a bit queasy and I feel queasy by the opening of Mxxx. I believe the vanilla incense in this is a little loud for me and comes across as saccharin instead of smokey since the sweet vanilla with festive spices make me unable to train myself to notice it as smokey. But my queasiness subsides once the introduction cloud settles and it becomes a very lovely, buttery, vanilla. In the opening it is very mace, vanilla and incense heavy opening like a much sweeter Epic Man from Amouage that smells bracingly spicy to the point of being burnt, then it settles to an incensy, earthy, fatty, sweet vanilla with a powdery nuance. Its earthy qualities smell of ground cocoa and its fatty qualities smell of sweaty skin with Nivea cream or sustain lotion applied contributed by the fatty ambergris, and gamey castoreum, and hyraceum. I think it is an innocent raunchiness not "x-rated" as it contains hints of a present moisturized skin odor that is tempered with an amber incense edge which is rather pleasing, comforting. In the end, it kind of reminds me of caramel popcorn. Delicate, sweet, savory, buttery and warm. I am unsure how often I’d want to visit this one because I find myself forgetting about it quite often. I can’t see myself wearing it enthusiastically since it is a bit of a chore persisting through the opening with my queasiness and being left with what to me is just a good, vanilla gourmand, incense. But I can easily see this one smelling like "Christmas Bottled" to others as it is a good, very festive, liturgical and warm spicy vanilla. With Mxxx I have found a vanilla that doesn’t quite suit me yet even though it has one of the most intriguing scent pyramids I’ve ever seen. Maybe it will grow on me. I would not describe myself as a vanilla lover in general so finding a vanilla that works for me is quite rare. Nevertheless I am interested in trying more from the brand namely Scorpio Rising. 8.5/10 Edit: Coming back to this one and it has really, really grown on me! It's quite different every time I wear it. Sometimes the incense, vanilla and castoreum start with a slightly urinous facet but in a fantastically balanced fashion with very eccentric character manifesting a very retro-but-modern feel. I now find some beautiful gamey liturgical smokiness about it from a spicy mace and saffron working with the rooty and spicy Trinidad cocoa absolute. In this mixture the vanilla is boosted and exaggerated allowing for an uplifting, creamy and bright spicy zen quality. It is a very complex scent and I shamefully called it "Boring" and didn't understand it at first. An admittedly shy and delicate profile but it lasts a long time and it lingers discretely. It is extremely complex and balanced like a pandora's box of vanilla and incense. Though, it still has something "behaved" about it that holds it back for me. In some cases that may be its strength! In a way its behaved-ness does a sort of gourmand transformation like caramel popcorn or gingerbread or chocolate cake with chocolate icing but it stays fancy. I still believe it has resemblance to Musc des Sables but excitingly Mxxx is more raw and ultimately unique. This has become one of my most favorite vanillas. I want it now. Creamy, smokey, realistic, savory, zen, holy. 9.5/10 Edit: F**k being misbehaved. I adore this smell😭. 🍿🍫🕯 10/10

I likened Mx., Mxxx.'s predecessor, to a watercolor painting. It had very broad strokes of notes that overlapped in some slightly sloppy and amateurish ways like watercolor paints soaking into the paper and blending into something unintentional. However, the amateurish nature came across as puerile and playful, heartwarming and happy, rather than technically disappointing. It's a highly enjoyable piece of work that won't ever be found on a museum wall; most of us would rather hang the drawing or watercolor from a very young loved one on our refrigerator than a Jan van Eyck oil masterpiece anyway. The novice watercolor tugs at our heartstrings in more meaningful ways. Mxxx., though, is a van Eyck: stupendously accurate and precise, and richly colored. The opening of Mxxx. is virtually the same as Mx., but it's done by van Eyck. The ginger with its citrusy and earthy piquancy, the saffron with its floral woody characteristics, the olibanum with its funky green resins, and pepper that is fruity and tight, are all accounted for but just "more" - richer and better detailed and stitched together seamlessly rather than overlaying each other as in Mx.. A new and curious character is in this mix, mace, adding a deeper, warmer, and aromatic facet to the opening that makes the whole feel as though the light has been dimmed a bit, but the dimming creates shadow contrasts allowing the whole to be richer. The heart has been given the same van Eyck treatment, with the cocoa note of Mx. present in this section of Mxxx. instead of the base as it was in Mx. The cocoa has been amplified significantly. In Mx., to my nose, it was barely distinguishable, but in Mxxx., juxtaposed next to richer cedar and sandalwood, it creates bitter fruity, earthy and floral tones that play with the creamy and peppery aspects of the sandalwood and cedar very well. Then, finally at the base, we have an amber given the same van Eyck treatment. I must say that I am not pulling as much of an ambergris note that everyone else is. I am mainly getting the patchouli, benzoin, vanilla, and light leathery animalics. There are slight musky and salty undertones, but to be able to separate that from the vetiver note, also present, and the light leather is difficult for my nose. However, the base is gorgeous - richly hued, expertly composed, very smooth, suave, and elegant. Van Eyck's works lacked one thing that Mxxx. has: sexiness. Van Eyck's works could actually be said to go in the opposite direction - to be so regal, prim and proper that the works lack any of the messiness that comes with emotion and sexuality. Mxxx. is not a hot-and-red-blooded beast hell-bent on ravaging someone, but you can feel the pulse pushing the hot red blood to its face and nether regions. It's a wonderful composition and one of, if not the best in the Eris line.

Before sampling Mxxx, I'd anticipated a potent, brooding, masculine, animalic amber. For starters, it boasts a massive 7% dose of tinctured Ambergris and even contains a measure of Hyraceum (i.e., petrified rodent dung). Heavy stuff. Big guns. And moreover, just listen to how the creators describe it: "Mxxx pushes dark sensuality to a new limit. Surrender to its beauty!” – Antoine Lie, perfumer “Mxxx [turns the lights] down low and the animalic growl up.” — Barbara Herman, creative director Sounds like a dark, intoxicating, feral brew, right? Well, when I finally sampled Mxxx, I was taken by surprise. The actual effect is quite the opposite: light, airy, unisex, and absolutely brimming with life. The animalics impart neither skank nor scat nor sex; rather, they impart a gentle demur *vitality*. That heavy dose of ambergris, in particular, makes this fragrance feel alive--an extension of the wearer--his aura--her halo. Vanilla and cacao are the other chief notes--these are nuanced with ginger, pepper, and saffron then served on a platter of sandalwood and vetiver--yet Mxxx is far from a typical gourmand and is most emphatically *not* a dessert fragrance. Even so, if you sprayed this over shrimp and rice I would probably try to eat it (hyraceum notwithstanding). This is a 20% extrait concentration that wears like an EDT. Nothing else really smells like this; but, in terms of effect, for me Mxxx 'scratches the same itch' as Diptyque's Tam Dao and Zoologist's Squid (which is funny because those two are so dissimilar). I found this to be easily full-bottle worthy; it is now my routine office fragrance. Yet another triumph for the consistently excellent (and consistently unpredictable) Antoine Lie, a true genius and living legend. 9/10.

I've always loved the idea of gourmands but I often find them too sweet, sickly and overbearing. I was close to writing off gourmands completely until I smelled this. This was just a random blind by from a sample set with no expectations. On strip I just got some gentle animalic notes and not too much else and put it to the side. Decided to spray it on skin and give it a full go, and I'm delighted to discover how wonderful this is on skin. The opening hits you briefly with a strong dose of warm nutmeg and spices, that admittedly I'd have loved to get more than a couple of seconds of as I keep wanting to reapply, and then after a few seconds the spices settle and you are finally met with a wall of strong clean waxy ambergris and cacao that comes together to smell like a high-end chocolaterie. There is no cheap sugary sweetness to it at all. Just a warm cacao with a vanilla blanket. Underneath all of this is an animalic base that never becomes stinky or dirty. The hyraceum just adds this warm hug to the overall experience creating a close and comforting feel, and giving it a wonderful character to the body of the fragrance. It has synthetic castoreum, but definitely in very low amounts and hard to detect. It's a very well balanced experience. It's not a punchy fragrance by any means though. It settles down quickly into a skin scent so you'll definitely need a few sprays to get it to the point it will jump out at you as you wear it, as one spritz on the skin may leave you hungry for more. If you like warmer scents but not too big on scents that creep into the gourmand territory I still think it's worth looking into as you may surprise yourself.

Oppositely to Vetchling below, I was both dreading and anticipating exploring this house. The mostly sexual and animalic nature of the creations is completely outside of my comfort zone. I have the full sample set to explore and I thought I would start off with what seemed like the obvious odd one out that I would hate, so I figure I should get it out of my system and from there it could only get better. I'm *so* very confused, right now. The reviews here are all over the place so I was expecting to get a blast of fecal but I did not. This is beautiful. Sweet yet animalic, stupidly sexy and suggestive. To my nose, this is far removed from the animalic of Liquides Imaginaires's Peau de Bête or Zoologist's Hyrax. Those two are vile and sadly repulsive to me. Mxxx on the other hand, both confuses me and enthralls me. The sweetness of the cacao and vanilla blends perfectly with the creamy, wet stone aspect of hyraceum (which here somehow doesn't turn fecal, thank goodness) and the just-right-enough animalic nature of the ambergris balanced by the balsamic resins. Baffling. It lasts quite a long time on my skin (8+ hours) and seems to project well too, considering I first had it on strip and I could smell it when I entered the room. I'm sure this would last days on clothes. I came in expecting to hate this and I walk out with a dark, mystical, sexy beast of a fragrance, wanting to wear it several times and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up getting a bottle.