Lingua Franca

First sniff impressions: a citrus with some backbone. Pleasant. A bit like lying in the dry, amber-golden grasses of one of California's rolling hills and then someone quite nearby cuts into a lime and a pineapple simultaneously. Strong hints of lemongrass, and then something sweeter starts to emerge, which my nose can't identify. Fruity, abstractly Asian. Then I'm finding myself lost in a field of carnations, and it all happened so fast I'm not sure quite what to think. This is a busy little rollercoaster of a ride, and how you feel about that will likely strongly shape how you feel about this perfume. I'm a bit turned upside down by the experience but I do plan to try it again and see if it's a smoother ride once my nose has calmed down a bit. I'm interested. An hour later and the drydown is more settled and smooth, ambers, grasses and woods.

I am guessing Lingua Franca is more complex than what I was able to pick up on. It’s a citrus opening, mostly lemongrass and lime. It’s very tart on the initial spray. This quickly dies down and the citrus becomes more subdued. Overall, I basically agree with Ursa Mater. The middle notes are a rather delicate mix of herb and flowers - not too many herbs, not too many flowers. It’s subdued compared to the very tart opening. The fragrance ends on a rather complicated mix of notes - I think I can pick up the vetiver, ambergris, labdanum and olibanum. They’re all light and there’s some other stuff in there, but that’s what I pulled away from the note scheme. Lasts quite a long time and the projection is good. I’m glad I tried this fragrance. Mikmoi is certainly a talented and interesting house. Give this a shot, you might like it.

I bought this at a perfume fair and either it smells great only when sprayed on something far better or I had completely confused it with something else entirely. I got home with it and couldn't imagine why I'd bought it. This was probably in 2013, right after it had come out. Now in 2022, it hasn't gotten any better. It just smells strange. That's often a plus for me, but not with this one. It also has an odd way of occasionally wafting a rotting banana smell. It's going to a friend who often gets my rejects and gives some of them to people who are impressed by glitzy bottles. So someone somewhere will gush about this.

strange. I know almost no notes overlap with it, but I feel Odin's 10 Roam on this. Maybe the spices and palo santo woods build that impression. I only noticed the many citrus notes after taking a look into the note lists, and found it strange; neroli and yuzu are distinct notes, not easily overlooked. Less so is rose, carnation or labdanum. This was a pleasant surprise reminding you that no matter how many trials you had, you can be misled or mistaken, and that's the part I enjoyed the most. Compared to Ao, which I find unmistakably unique, Lingua Franca fails to impress me that distinctively; still, it is a well finished, pleasant and familiar scent with many personal favourite notes such as lemongrass, rose, carnation, oud, vetiver, and labdanum.