Orphic

Hard to say anything bad about this fragrence, it's nicely done! After letting it sit ~30 min so the base notes unveil, I'm really happy with it. Equal parts fir forest/ethereal.

Yep, it smells like the one that inspired it, or at least it does after drying down for an hour. Don’t judge it based on the wild first few minutes when it’s zigzagging all over the place immediately after being sprayed. It’s really hard to mess up the notes in this composition, and the combination of notes in this composition is good. This is rich and wears closer to the skin, which is par for the course for an extrait, both in this extrait and the extrait that inspired it. I would not want to smell like the original Baccarat Rouge; I think the Baccarat Rouge Extrait is the version I would prefer. But my favorite MFK fragrances are Amyris Femme and Oud Satin Mood, so I’m just glad this one hits the mark well enough. Amyris Femme is a masterpiece. This house, Oakcha, certainly makes an impression. When I deconstruct the accords that have brought MFK into the mainstream with a superstar fragrance, I wade through the fabulous overwhelm of regality that the bottle emits in every spritz, I think about other things and come back to it, and I dial back to the style. At its core, strictly in terms of traditional accords, this branch of MFK fragrances that has stormed the market worldwide reminds me of some of the accords in the nicer Armani offerings for men over the years, but in a very upscale and elegant way that no other house has achieved; at once sheer but astounding, breathable and breathtaking, stylish and classic. This Oakcha fragrance captures something essential about MFK. Oakcha is doing something amazing by mastering the essential aspects of celebrated fragrances in full blast concentration with no parabens or phthalates while remaining vegan and cruelty free at prices accessible to a very wide market. I don’t know if they can sell in Europe due to IFRA, but Americans have been paying through the nose for import costs and secrets bound to one exclusive region or another to buy European fragrances for long enough that it’s overdue for a perfumer in the US to offer some excellent and accessible alternatives.

This def is more noticeable than Sweven but it still has that slight metal note that BR540 does not have. Of the BR540 dupes I have, I think the only one that just smells good, no weird notes, is from Dossier. This one is decent but still slightly off.

I never understood the comparison people make with this DNA to a doctor’s office... until now. My god, it’s a sterilized medical facility / operating room to the T!