Excess

Excess is one of my favorite scents. It is also one of the first TokyoMilk scents I bought. It is not quite like any other scent I know of although reviewers have said it reminds them of certain others. First of all there is nothing floral or sweet about this. If you like gourmand vanilla based scents this is definitely not one. The opening is very much blood orange but in a brisk bergamot kind of way. That fades quickly and then it begins a rather brief dry down to a scent that is actually metallic. With oak, amber, and patchouli as the remaining scents you would expect a heavy earthiness but Excess is surprisingly clean. The qualities that keep coming to my mind are salt and metal. The patchouli here is very clean and bright, not dirty. The oak is subtle but probably contributes to the purity of the scent. The amber I am used to is quite sweet but here it just balances the patchouli and oak and keeps everything just this side of strident. For a scent with this much patchouli it has surprisingly little sillage. It subsides to a skin scent quickly. The longevity is also surprisingly short. It hangs around as a ghost for some time but if you want to smell it without sticking your nose into the area it was sprayed, you will need to reapply every 3-4 hours. Why do I love this perfume? Well, I'm a patchouli fan but I don't like the skank aspect of cheaper patchouli blends. This one is earthy but clean. It is also an unusual scent. I've never smelled anything like this on anyone. (Note to self: Ask a few friends to try it on to see what it does on them) When I have it on, I just keep sniffing myself. That's usually a good sign. It also pleases my inner Goth by smelling artistic and unusual. It is not a traditionally feminine fragrance but I think it suits me very well. I could imagine both men and women of a certain alternative nature wearing this quite well.

Dark Excess. That's what I thought it was called, when I first saw it somewhere on this site maybe 10 days ago. That name attracted me right away; it could be my middle name. I certainly have always been about excess. That old Oscar Wilde line..."nothing succeeds like excess." I know nothing about what looks like a multitude of other fragrances in the Tokyo Milk line; I didn't know they weren't Japanese until I got this bottle and wondered why there wasn't Japanese lettering anywhere on the bottle. But I do like this one. It's exactly what I always seem to be looking for. Rich, non-gooey fragrance; amber resin and patchouli, great; oak bark, sure, and I'll even agree to blood orange. The four of those are printed in white on the black bottle, in case we'd forgotten or maybe as a warning. The effect is calming though. It doesn't screech or call attention to itself. You'll know it's there, but not half the room. All of it at a decent price, or at least I paid a decent/cheap price; I have no idea what these retail out as. I wish it lasted a bit longer. I seem to be getting maybe 3 1/2 hours. I'd like at least 5 hours with this one. Sillage doesn't matter so much to me, as long as I can smell it. More people would buy this, and probably other scents from the whole line, if they'd see them more often. And Fragrantica needs to change its hours of longevity measurement. 3-6 hours is just too wide, and at a critical time. A perfume that lasts in some form for 6 hours is a miracle/Godsend, whereas one that gives up the ghost totally at 3 hours and 10 minutes is a disappointment and often a huge waste of money. So how about changing the moderate time period to 3-4 hours, the longlasting to 5-8 hours, and eternal to 9+ hours? Or something like that?

EXCESS may be my favorite creation from the Tokyo Milk Dark collection, though it's becoming more and more difficult to say! In this case, a big blast of labdanum amber mixes with patchouli, a touch of wood, and an even lighter touch of blood orange to produce a super-smooth and sensual cold-weather-only perfume. There are zillions of amber perfumes and quite a few patchouli amber perfumes on the market, so the competition is stiff in this realm, particularly among niche houses. With so many high-quality amber choices out there, it's a real mark of distinction to be something that I actually premeditatively look for occasions to wear, and EXCESS has swiftly become the first amber I reach for, despite being the last to join my collection. This one is definitely less spicy than some, but somehow I am drawn to its viscous golden gleam. EXCESS is also not sweet, which to me is a plus and would make this a sure hit among some gents as well. Is my current infatuation with EXCESS only a momentary crush? Will this perfume be forgotten and lost in the back of my armoire in the not-too-distant future? I think not. This feels like the real thing: a top-notch amber-patchouli perfume!

Alright - so this very well could be the best out there, all things considered. I know I know - such a bold thing to say... but let me elaborate. How many high end houses out there try to pull of the "contrast fragrance" - the avant garde "paradoxical" fragrance? Lots!! Well, to a certain extent, that's what this is. Patch, blood orange, a hint of sweetness... to me, its the perfect concoction. It's deep, dark and as close to dirty as you can get without being dirty. It's mysterious. Its infruiging. The feel of this reminds me of so many of the tom ford private blends. The dark and light contrasting notes followed by a patchouli base. I can say with near certainty that if we slapped a gold square on this bottle that said "tom ford", folks would be clammering to find a bottle! But, it's not. For me, the only negative is the performance - which I would consider to be well below average for an edp - maybe 2 hours on my skin. But - it's not about performance for me. It's about the damn smell. And this smells just the way I want it to. 7/10 I'm a big fan.

Tokyomilk "Excess"...a scent for a hedgewitch. Crushed dry leaves, turned earth, patchouli incense; someone's been digging up mandrake roots in the dusk. There's a hint of amber---perhaps she scents her hair with it---and a passing tang of blood orange, left on her fingers from the fruit shared with her lover in the forest. A touch of cedar wood, maybe from a carved talisman she wears, or the box that will hold the mandrake. Transient sweetness, a hint of spice, the hard bones and soft soil of the land that sustains us and will receive us at our nightfall. Beautiful and even seductive in its own twilight, gothic, witchy, quietly magical way...