Inception

These are my initial thoughts, having just received this in the mail yesterday. First sprays was to wear around the house while I did chores and got ready for bed. Today is my first full day of wear at work, so we will see how it really performs. HOWEVER, right off the bat, I will say, I've never been more impressed by the first sprays of a clone fragrance. My bottle has a production date of 03.2026. This is an incredibly young bottle and has not had any time to macerate after first sprays. But boy were these first sprays good. The opening is very bright and citrusy, with a good zing from the ginger. I'd compare the brightness of the opening more to Art of Arabia 1's than Marwa or Aqua Dubai. Projection in the opening is fantastic on first sprays. Not overly loud, but noticeable, and not too much to be in the car with my best friend right after spraying. The opening lasts on my skin for well over an hour. I'm going on an hour and a half of wearing this fragrance this morning, and I'm just now really starting to get the mid notes popping in. The tea and cinnamon are perfectly balanced. My nose doesn't directly pick up the neroli, but I do believe I perceive it as more of a textural thing, giving a lightly dense airiness to the mid. I was not awake long enough last night to really get into the dry down (which tells you this stuff LASTS), but I will say the only thing I don't get from this that I do miss is the resinous and smooth frankincense that you get in AoA1. Time may bring that out more, but I will keep you guys updated. TIP: I start my day with a smell good routine, and I think everyone should, too. This means showering and applying moisturizer. I like to pair this, and most of my fresh tea-based fragrances, with the BareLuxury Ginger and Green Tea body lotion from Morgan Taylor, available on amazon. It smells amazing, fresh and airy ginger with a mild sweetness from the green tea, and works perfectly as a base moisture layer for most citrus and tea based fragrances. Smells wonderful on its own too, if you just like to smell like ginger and tea like I do. I also apply this to my hair by spraying a little bit of the fragrance (or pairing it with something similar like AoA1 on the hair to add more depth and variety while remaining cohesive) on a clean hairbrush to get the alcohol to begin evaporating, then brush it through my hair. This works wonders if you have long hair like I do. Hair traps fragrance so well and evaporates it more slowly than skin, which will make this last much longer and create a wonderful scent trail as you move. UPDATE: As I now also own a bottle of the OG imagination, I truly believe this to be the closest dupe on the market period. The citrus is a little stronger and more vibrant in the opening, which isn't a bad thing at all, and I do think the tea is a little stronger, although these differences could be due to this being an extrait. The dry down is identical to my nose. Inception is a little louder and stronger and the opening especially lasts longer than the OG on my skin, once again because extrait most likely. I will say though the OG has a certain refined airy blended quality to it that is not present in my bottle of inception. This could change over time as this bottle is barely a month old. Maturation and masterbiting could very well bring it even closer.

So, just got this like yesterday, and I got the 100ml Bottle. It looks soo beautiful, and it has a quite strong magnetic cap, overall. 9/10 for the bottle and the presentation. For the scent, I get this like super Lemony, it reminds me of Mykonos Slow Living, sweet citrus in the opening, and after a couple of second. I can smell the Ginger, that gave's a Warm and Fizzy and also spicy scent, mixed with the Lemon and bergamot. In the middle, I still get the Lemon&ginger scent, but this time theres a cinnamon scent, that gives a more Sweet, Woody, Spicy scent. And the Black tea gives like a Lemon black Tea Vibe, and i get the neroli scent but not to noticeable for me. And in the drydown, this is my favorite part. It clearly smelled like Black Lemon Tea Soap, it's Clean, It's Citrusy, It gets that Black Tea Note, the Sweet from the Cinnamon, mixed with the Woody notes. It's absolutely Amazing. For the Sillage, Longetivity, Projection, haven't tested it out yet. As I remember, the longetivity was like 6-7 almost 8 hours. I guess Inception gets an easy 6Hours on the skin. I will edit this after maturation

The person below me respectfully more then likely bought a full bottle of Imagination & then bought this & now has to hate on this because of how close it is to the original (with all respect you should have just saved your money & waited for a true clone to come out finally which is what I personally did as I don't think spending the money on the original is worth it for a fragrance this simple) I don't even blame them for hating on this though because popular fragrance designer/niche houses NEED to start realizing how SCARY accurate dupes are getting & they should start reducing their prices to make up for it because it is eventually going to get to a point where most dupes are Liquid Brun accurate (which is literally a copy & paste of PDM Althair & is literally indistinguishable from each other when they both dry down) & expensive fragrance houses need to start realizing this.

It's honestly so weird to me that a company as large, popular, and high-end as LV has to (likely) pay people to come on this site and downvote every dupe in the "reminds me of" section that's said to smell anything like their stuff. I don't think there is much crossover between the person buying dupes and their clientele who would pay retail for Imagination. They do everything they can to not have their fragrances associated with any others, and I get it, to a certain point. Also, this is so damn close to the OG that anyone who said otherwise is either a paid shill or a weirdo elitist. It's also much longer lasting than the original. Regardless, buy what you like. I'm not going to tell someone how to spend their money. But for me, I'll save mine whenever the OG is that expensive and options like this exist that can get so close.

I tried comparing this with my already matured Marwa, and when I compared the smell of the two, they were very similar, but Inception definitely smelled stronger, probably due to its higher oil concentration (or because it had yet to mature). My bottle of Marwa's performance is ass (about 1 hour of projection and then almost skin scent after that), so I bought Inception in the hopes that problem would be fixed, and so far, I think it has, as Inception definitely lasts longer than Marwa. 2 hours of projection and a total of 6 hours for me before it fully becomes a skin scent. I bought the 100 ml, and it has a magnet cap and pressurized atomizer. 9/10 would buy again.

I compared this with Hectic and Imagination on skin all in different areas at the same time. This was just a touch closer to the smell of Imagination than Hectic but I get better longevity from Hectic. They are both very close to Imagination and performance is better for both but Imagination just can't be beat scent wise. This isn't a 1:1 but it is the closest that I have found. Wish it had the longevity of Hectic but they are both so close and so good for the price that I highly recommend if you can't or don't want to pay Imagination's price.

Artificial hype? Sure. Fragrance masterclass? Indeed. This smells like the most invigorating thing $30 can get you in this economy. As far as imagination goes they are to me 95% similar and I would even argue I like the twist Inception has of being more "green"/ tea heavy gives the fragrance more backbone. Say what you want about the hype, tiktok, whatever the case is Mykonos is creating something special for the pricepoint and that is undeniable. For me their best creation.

I really enjoyed Mykonos Inception. I once smelled Imagination but I can’t remember exactly how it was, so I’ll have to try it again and update the review. So far I’ve loved it for a blind buy if you’re into citrusy and tea, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s also quite oily, which makes it last longer and gives it a premium feel. I got the new 100ml format. If you like the smell of Imagination, this is a great inspiredby 100% recommend.

I really enjoy this fragrance, however it did smell slightly medicinal when i first got it and it does seem to have a bit more of a mature vibe than for a younger guy. After just a few days of maceration with the cap off I can tell the scent has evolved and I do enjoy it more now. This is a pretty great scent and honestly imagination is already pretty common so I think we should gate keep this. 😅

This smells good, gets compliments and pretty close to OG. I dont understand the complaints about dupes that come pretty close. If you want a REAL 1 to 1 buy the real shit. But what do i know, 99.9% of haters have trained their olfactory sense so greatly they can distinguish every f'n note in a fragrance. Better yet they can spot the difference between all the dupes and OG. FOH. Its a great frag.

So, I blind bought it. I’ve previously had Aqua Dubai and Hawas Kobra. Dubai was to feminine for me, just soap. Kobra was to screechy and smelled cheap. This has less of the soap than Dubai, much more of that Tea note and smells far more expensive than what I paid for it. Is it a 1:1, no idea. I’m not paying $350 for smelly water. This is good

This is a really good fragrance for just everyday wear, smells like your in a heytea or a molly tea really nice tea scent. the cirtus soap i dont really get a lot of which is what imagination is known for but ive never smelled imagination before. opening citrus and soapy scent only lasts like 10 minutes and it transitions to the tea vibe

2nd review: really love this perfume. planning to sell my Sorrento and buy a 100ml of this. the lemon and black tea smell are so prominent that it made me want to try other tea frags. along with the black tea and lemon, there is also a fizziness. my guess is that its coming from the orange and bergamot. 9.5/10

This is hands down the closest dupe to the infamous LV Imagination. The performance is also great, i got roughly around 5 hours on skin and about 7 hours on clothes. This would probably be my top recommendation for anyone who's looking for both a soapy scent for the summer and a Imaginations dupe

As someone that absolutely loves Imagination & that has bought MULTIPLE dupes of it to try to find "the one true dupe" I am just going to keep it short & say this: If you have this? congratulations you have found the final boss of Imagination clones & you can gatekeep it.

imaginations closest alternative balances all the aspects unlike marwa which is very ginger heavy this is more soapy but definnitely worthy for summers and if u are looking for a budget alternative even cheaper than marwa

Smells so good. Never smelled real imagination, only a few dupes. As a dupe, this is the best one I've smelled. I really like the tea note. Lasts very long and projection is decent (good for a extrait de parfum)

Bang on imagination dupe people who are saying its not close either havent tried imagination or bought the OG bottle and now justifying there purchase. This is hell close to the OG

I love this fragance from the 1st spray, such a smooth and polished fragance.. Very fresh, citrus tea ambery and woody vibe.

If you like LV Imagination this is for you. Great bang for the buck. More citrus forward imo, nice creamy dry down.