Ex Altiora

I have been electrocuted many times throuought my life. The first time I was electrocuted was driving in my parent's car as a child, one of the first bad storms I lived through, I was only 4 or so and sitting in the middle back seat of our 98 Ford Explorer which had been through so much the internal roof had to be taken off, I was fiddling with one of the loose screws for the rarely-used roof rails that I could reach as we approached the freeway stoplight. The car was jovial, my granddad chatting with my mom in the front seat, me in the back alone listening along while eyes focused on the bolt. The light turned green, I felt my neck crawl with static, and I felt this bright and intense flash coarse through my arm before I even heard the crack of a lightning bolt hit the asphalt in front of our car. I saw a small singe mark at my fingertip, doc said I got lucky and that it was probably just minor discharge from the main bolt, the mother of all static electricity. Since then I've had a young lifetime of being oft electrocuted, by outlets that left my fingers singed, exposed wires finding my forearms and making them spasm, motherboard capacitors deciding to trip when I'm doing maintenance at my first summer job, and a bad luck with power outtages making me braver than I should be to check the breaker box un-gloved. I can't even count them all on both hands anymore, the last time was two weeks ago when a surge strip tripped and decided to unplug it from the wall and re-plug it in, not looking where my fingers were on the way back. Ex Altiora is a masquerade. The opening is soaking wet rain, almost mildewy, with a jarring hit of ozone that reminded me immediately of those moments shaking hands with electricity to the point where the hair on the back of my neck stood up on its end, as well as what I can only describe as a "Citrus" note. This "Citrus" note is hard to describe, on first spray it smells like Sprite and is sugary and sweet but you can't call it lemon or lime it doesn't smell like any of those but it smells good so you ignore it. As it melts down the ozone is still strong but that "Citrus" note's sweetness melts into something strange and not being able to place what it is becomes a concern. The closest I've been able to come to it is Lemon-Scented Bleach but even still that makes it sound way too artificial it smells organically fake like something organic pretending to be a citrus having only read about them in books. The rain note has become a storm, it's deep and wet, there's no more petrichor its flooded streets and smothered plants. In addition, by this point the dominating scent is old books, and the metallic ozone hits the back of your throat so much that it smells like burning when you pull away which also reminds me very much of being electrocuted, where that sort of "burnt hair" smell is noticeable. This is what I expected this scent to smell like. Nostalgic in a way. Smells like hurricane season down here on the Gulf. I wouldn't call this a good blind buy in general but if you really like ozone then it's a good one. Recommend to buy the sample tester if you're considering it, or if you listen to The Magnus Archives I think it's good fan merch, I only listened to the first season and a bit of the second so I can't say much on if it holds up to it's lore or not. Good storm season scent too if you want to freak some people out who know what ozone smells like enough to identify it on scent. Worn best with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning and a broken umbrella.

As a huge TMA fan, this is an interesting second pick for a collab- although I guess very few of the entities from the series would make for good smells? I don’t see commercial appeal in Meat Monster or skin worms and translating “the fear of being watched” into a scent seems difficult. Anyhoo. This smells how a McDonald’s sprite tastes. It smells like accidentally having metal hit a tooth filling but in a weirdly pleasant way. It’s very “punchy” and fizzy, like bubbles going up your nose after chugging an orange soda. The description here says ozone + books, but I would definitely say ozone and citrus... Maybe some pine if I really concentrate. They definitely succeeded at turning electricity into a scent in a really interesting way, and the aldehydes do give it the distinct vibe of a bolt of lightning high in the night sky. Really cool :)

Has become markedly sweeter with maceration, but retains its ozonic fragrance. Citrus notes have increased in strength. At no point have I detected old books. Longevity and sillage could be better but to be fair this is a change of pace from my usual repertoire of strong scents. I don't know how Sucreabeille bottled lightning, but they've done it. When first sprayed, the ozone strangeness is distinctive and delightfully off-putting: my grandmother recoiled from the scent the first time I wore it. The initially strong and inhuman ozone is a fitting tribute to The Vast, but when worn this fragrance quickly fades to a cool and inoffensive scent which I find a little disappointing.

Floral and clean; like a foggy day in spring and you're taking a bubble bath. Not as sharp and "dangerous" smelling as other ozonics I've tried. Sadly, it turns sour and soapy on my skin.

I am a fan of ozone, and have recently been searching for rainstormy scents, but I may not be fervent enough in my ardour to appreciate this perfume. It smells almost exactly like citrus all-purpose cleaning spray that I used to use to clean the Humane Society bathrooms as a middle school volunteer, which is not necessarily a negative. It’s not as aggressive as some of the reviews on the shop’s website led me to believe, and it has incited no headaches. I really can’t think of another way to describe it but “cleaning product”. If I strain, I feel like I can even smell the bathroom it’s being used to cleanse, not like human waste, just the sort of stale scent of 1-ply toilet paper and old grouting. I think maybe it's a lack of foliage or dirt smells that make it smell sharp and clean and citrusy instead of stormy, like I thought it might, but that's just the expectation I brought in. It’s not offensive, but I would only recommend it to people who really want to smell like Fabuloso. Or maybe it's just my skin chemistry.

I had been looking for a purely ozonic perfume for awhile, and as a fan of The Magnus Archives, I purchased this very excitedly. Have you ever been to your primary doctor's office and it just kind of smells like sick people? That's what I get from this perfume. It smells like sick people and disinfectant. I occasionally get an ozonic note when wearing this fragrance, but most of the time it just smells like a doctor's office. Kind of clean but dirty at the same time.

Fresh limes. No ozone at all for me. The fragrance lasts more than 24 hours as a barely-there skin scent. However, on me it does not smell at all electrical. It could be fun to mix this with other fragrances, but not at its price.

This was so disappointing, it smells like grapefruit and sits on the skin like an oily puddle.