The Artist No. 2

I do not have The Moon, but I have more than 25 oud fragances, so my comments are in that direction. If you are looking for a compliment getter, crowd pleaser, cozy sweet aroma, easy understandable franagance: RUN AWAY! No matter what the hype or the "experts" say. This is a Love it or Hate it product. No gray areas, no in betweens. This is strong, complex, hard, beyond the commercial and western fragrances. Even if you have oriental arab oud perfumes, is not for everybody. This powerful perfume is for make an statement when you arrive. You are saying I'M HERE, I COMMAND, AND I DO NOT CARE OF ANYBODY. Is for standing out of everybody and REALLY do not care of approval, opinions or comments. If you are not with the right clothes, in the right situation and the right attitude, this thing will take control of the situation and disaster appears. The oud + saffron + rose + sandal build a high wall around you, that says "I'm unreachable, unattainable, I'm the boss, I have arrived". I use it on very formal occasions, with a nice sport dark suit, white shirt, dark pants, nice shoes, black expensive watch, and I will be the leader of the event. A leader who do not want to be friendly or happy fool pleaser with everybody, just courteous, serene, assertive, composed. Is on those occasions when this thing works, and works very well. So well that incredibly in two of those events, at the end of the meeting, a person asked discretely what fragrance I was using. So if you are less than 40+ yo, or like to play mr-popularity-please-all-happy-always-fun... forget this, get Armani, Channel or something else. Worst: If you love to smell like cotton-candy, wedding cake, cookies or caramels... do not even try it. Seriously. Performance: After 2 months of maceration, more than 16 hours on clothes (4-6 sprays), great projection for 3-4 hours on closed spaces. My batch is from 2023. I do not recommend it on hot days, unless you will be on an environment with good AC. If someone have a bottle, and want to throw it away, first send me a PM and we can talk about it. Cheers!

This is Sex Panther, from Anchorman, made real. Dreamed into existence in an illegally 3D printed (squirted, am I right, fellas? 🔫) replica of Andrei Tarkovsky's dream room communist orgone thing. Some say it isn't real. That it's a right wing conspiracy. Some say it is happening and it's good. Me? I'm making it mandatory for your children. I smell everything that everyone hates in it and I love it. Y'see, son, I know it's a skunk when it's a mile off and the sumbitch smells like toasted sesame oil. I also know it's a skunk, when the little stinker's secret pisshole done blasted your dog next door. But that don't mean, SON, that the dog next door smells like the tire-wrestled sumbitch a mile off. Yes, I smell the THING that makes you detect burning tires, but I don't smell burning tires. I smell power. I smell Aromatics Elixir, worn under a silk suit, at a rich mohogany desk, sitting on a rich, oxblood leather throne, by a man with his feet on a desktop calendar, shouting "talk to me" into his phone, in the middle of an empty machine shop. Is it sexy? No. But his secretary is still chewing a hole in her lip, because he's a MAN. He's POWER. He's too iconic for petty iconoclasm. He's a Roman kicking the dried blood of Carthage off his sandals in a cloud of salmon chalk as he dangles his feet off a garden wall, licking a cone of his favorite Garum ice cream. If you're not built for it, that must really suck. Ten out of ten. Year round. Night or day. A man for all seasons. A man from everywhere.

This is not as simple as the minimal ingredients list shown here. This is pretty complex, starts off with some floral and sour raspberry notes where litchi note is prominent, with dark and smokey leather and woody notes, which then transitions towards darker leather and raspberry notes with masculine floral and wild dark composition. Love it, it is very calming deep and soothing but animalic fragrance which smells like some mysterious dense fumes. Totally inclined towards being masculine fragrance. Not sure what other perfume it smells like, but it is quite good in itself. Fragrance IMO - 9.5 / 10

Artist No. 2 is a commendable clone of Frederic Malle's The Moon, offering a striking resemblance at a fraction of the cost. While it doesn't match the original's strength, the scent captures the essence with its floral and woody notes. Ideal for those who appreciate subtlety, it's perfect for nighttime wear and casual settings. The bottle design is simple yet elegant. Overall, it's a solid choice, delivering quality that exceeds expectations given its price point.

Very nice rose and oud combo. It's brighter than some. Very oud forward but it isn't a fecal type of oud. 9/10. After maceration sillage is enormous on this one. It's very close to beast mode. Super underrated fragrance.

Very similar to Malle The Moon. Have to pull out my decant of The Moon to compare. Fantastic. Wearing it today! So good.

This is FM The Moon dupe. Not really a beastmode like the OG but quite close in terms of scent profile.

This is one of those fragrances that smell a lot better in the air vs on the skin. Smells luxurious.

This is a pretty good cypriol-based floral oud. Cypriol has a problem. To some folks it smell like oud. To other people it smells like manure. It's an extremely sharp divide. If you can smell the cypriol fecal notes, you will loathe this. If not, you might enjoy it. I can't smell anything wrong with it, but my wife had an incredibly negative reaction. So on balance, it's not for me. Some people might like how you smell. Other will think you smell like a pig sty. That's not really what I'd like. Note: this is likely a clone of FM The Promise.

Nice juice. Slightly smokey to my nose. Nice rose and saffron. Slight oud (if that's what's actually used) to my nose. Very pleasant and nice quality. Worth the price for sure compared to the scent that it clones (FM the Moon). Enjoy!

If you smells someone's mouth right after they woke up and they ate a chunk of oud and a nugget of incense as a dinner, it smells like that.

I find it quite interesting, smells very chemical but in a good way. Spicy rose with smoky plastic which slowly disappears in the dry down after around 20 minutes. There is this weird saliva-like animalic note that can only be noticed when you smell it up close, but in the air this has a creamy, dark and synthetic fruity bubblegum-like, slightly dusty, Gothic dark smell. I only wear it at night with a full black outfit. The gf finds it sexy and likes to wear it sometimes as well, the synthetic sweet rose is more dominant on her skin. Is it horrible or offensive? It depends on your nose I guess, just like every other scent ever. I haven't tried The Night by FM but my friends say The Artist No. 2 is not half as strong.

I had this one on my list because I liked the Artist No 1, and when it was very cheap, I decided to buy it. If I could have tried it, I definitely wouldn't have bought it... Honestly, I love myself some oud, and some of the ones that I have and love do get a little bit stanky as one. But the opening of this one is definitely very... barnyard-like. Together with the metallic saffron, you get something very odd... The drydown is more pleasant, but not outstanding in my mind. It doesn't warrant getting over the opening in my opinion...

I don't know if it is because my bottle is new...but this last 3 hours max in my skin. Just one hour of mild-low projection. A shame because y love the scent profile. My bottle is new. I will let it sit for a few months to see if the performance gets better. But doubt it. If you like rose-oud combo and don't want to spend much money, go to swiss arabian.

First spray impression: Clearly needs some maturation after several blasts to let some oxygen in. I can see some potential, for now it's just OK because drydown is fine, although performance is not as expected. Will update my comment next month (and maybe my rating too).

60% of the time, it works every time.

lovely oud ambroxan raspberry BOMB

No. 2 is a perfect name for this perfume because it smells like an animal just took one. Does this smell like The Moon? Yes it does. Perhaps this one is a bit lighter. Many reviewers say the unpleasant (manure) smell in this one is because it is low quality. This is sadly not the case. I purchased a decant of The Moon to compare and this one replicates the fecal smell of the original quite well, actually. I tried to like this. I squinted, and focused on the more pleasant notes of the perfume. I convinced myself that my nose was just too immature, and that if I wore it for a full day I might understand this "masterpiece". This was a mistake. The fecal note only amplified on my skin with time. A friend commented jokingly that I smelled "like a real cowboy" while covering their nose. I begrudgingly tried the same experiment again with "The Moon" and the result was the same, only amplified. The Moon is exorbitantly expensive because it is made with the finest natural ingredients. However, these ingredients have been poorly blended. The animal notes are much too prominent. I hate to sound blasphemous, but neither this or The Moon is an especially good perfume.

I'm writting this for people thinking of getting this as a The Moon replacement/clone. It's not. Not by a mile. It's smells like rubbery & sweet raspberry-rose eraser. It's so far off from The Moon. Don't waste your money, not even $20. I will let it sit and see if anything changes but I doubt it. Just get 2-3 ml decant of The Moon instead of this. Later edit : I have thrown it away. It's the first time I have done that but it is that bad and disgusting. It's chemical, cheap and the just a mess of blended aromachemicals. I know that Alhambra has some decent to good clones, this is NOT one of those. Please, just try to get a 2-3ml decant of The Moon instead of this. There is also Paris Corner - Identity Oud Crescent which tries to be a The Moon clone, it's far better than this, even though it's missing the oud part of The Moon, it's just fruity rose.

I sold this back in March. Just a warning for those with allergies, I have probably 90 or so fragrances, but this one caused allergies amongst the whole family, we all woke up with eyes sticking together and itchy skin. It was also a pretty poor comparison to The Moon which I had a decant of, so two reasons for getting rid of it. Save your money.