Nebula 1 Orion Eau de Parfum

I've fallen in love with this one.

After a couple of years I think I finally get it. Or maybe not. Either way, it goes from a hard dislike to a love for me. A mix of bubble gum, mint, soap, and mothballs in equal parts, with an ever so slightly icy-hot/sweet/soothing accord in the background that makes me think of something one might hypothetically spray into a planetarium to make the presentation more evocative. It does have an institutionally cosmic feel to it. I'm guessing a nebula smells like sulfur and burning tires in reality. This is more like the scholastic, psychedelic, '60s/'70s sci-fi version of outer space, maybe what Carl Sagan's ship smelled like in Cosmos, or what the room at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey smelled like. Seriously unlike anything I've ever tried. Not even close. I love the concept! I'm so glad I still have the bottle, and also that I gave it another shot years later. Definitely one to wear on those days when you're feeling like a time traveler from the future. This is art. Quite rad. Edit: Hoo, boy, the headache thing is real.

starts strong, minty spicy and mellows to pleasant fog of flowers, citrus, and spice. i understand that some will find the opening too unconventional, but getting through to the dry down, the scent is rather standard chypre with some contemporary "candy" hint. the overall effect borders on pharmaceutical, toothpaste, or muscle balm.

This perfume takes time and effort to understand, because it is so complex. First reaction of an unprepared me was: "This is awful, why would anyone ever wear it". But it does not do Orion justice, because it undergoes amazing transformations on skin. First seconds after spraying on it is a harsh almost chemical mix of resins, burned tires, wood and metal. So much going on that one wants to run away from this scary olfactory monster. After a while I realized that all of it actually smells familiar. It reminds me of the inside of a shoeshine shop. Those are quite rare these days, but I remember the smell of old wooden panels, leather, metal and a lot of shoe polish in a tiny space without proper ventilation. This is what Orion smells like to me for the first 10 minutes or so. Then somebody brings the poor chap who works there tea with honey. The shoeshine shop fills with warm aroma of honey dissolved in tea. It's a weird but not entirely unpleasant combination, because all the shoe polish is still there, but now mixed with honey. Next stage is when the shoe polish mellows out and lets a mix of some spices shine through, still accompanied by honeyed tea. Orion is a unique experience, I don't know anything like it. Unconventional as it is, it's probably never going to be very popular. But for those who take the time to discover all the different turns this perfume takes it's gonna be an interesting journey. At the end it becomes a quite wearable fragrance. I'm not the type for it myself, but I imagine a right guy could rock it around the clock.

challenging and conceptual to say the least. Interesting to smell but who would want to wear this? a synthetic chemical nightmare that you keep smelling in the way you can't get enough of super glue or WD-40, maybe even antifreeze. I hated it going on then as it dried down I could appreciate the metallic leather. Kind of like an animal just killed and skinned. The blood. The knife. The hide. Leather, artemisia, champaca, castoreum, woods. Yes, another reviewer has it right. A bit like shoe polish on leather shoes. The final drydown is a nice dry, slightly floral and synthetic/metallic leather.