Orchid Mantis

An orchid by any other brand would not smell as sweet. A botanist’s dew-eyed, green fever dream, Orchid Mantis bedews, beguiles, and bewitches its wearer. This is one of Zoologist’s finest accomplishments – and perhaps the most glowing floral fragrance on the market. It’s a hot pink hallucination of lip-glossed venom, floral lacquer, and sticky palms in a greenhouse that breathes as if it were alive. It’s a kiss from a rose on the grey. Orchid Mantis is the scent of Poison Ivy’s greenhouse. It intimately lures you into a botanical atrium – a haven of sticky heat, dew-drenched petals, and monstrous florals that lean in just a little too close. The air is surreally humid and pungently floral, with that dewy, glistening wetness, and a slightly acidic lip-lock of yellow citruses that melt into your skin. Vines of flora twist out of soil and creep toward the sky. Rare and exotic orchids bloom with obscene lushness, littering the earth in shades of fuchsia and high femme sprawling underfoot. Taking inspiration from the heavy, shoulder-padded fragrances of the 1980s, a southern girl decked out in pastel greens and pinks could still wear this fabulously. But me? I want to drown in it. Perhaps one of the most pleasantly approachable fragrances that Zoologist has ever released, Orchid Mantis lacks a bit of the standard Zoologist punch that we’ve come to expect. But don’t be fooled – it’s wildly addictive, right down to the very last petal. Like a carnivorous pitcher plant, Orchid Mantis lures you in and reminds you that beautiful things are a trap. It seduces softly, slowly - until you’re caught in its pretty but poisonous tendrils. Devoured in its embrace, and still gasping for another breath of its floral sap. It's leafy-soft, with a bite like glass. Orchid Mantis might just be Zoologist’s prettiest scent – but it’s not harmless. It coyly and delicately dares you to spray it again. And then, like a Venus fly trap in bloom, it smiles as it swallows you.

This might be my favorite take on a floral scent yet. Rarely does a scent manifest a certain setting or memory like this one has. The opening is a beautiful mixture of basil, citrus, and pear, which brings for a feeling of humid greenery. When Zoologist lists "dewy green accord," they did not lie! This gives way to a vibrant, yet delicate, mixture of florals which has yet to be paralleled in my scent trial journey. There is a faint "pissyness" (as put by my boyfriend) which you also get from actual flowers. There's also a subtle soapiness too. The depth of this scent has wowed every person I've shown this to. They way this conjures the memory of visiting a flower nursery's greenhouse, right after the flowers are watered, with my mom in mid-spring to pick out that Summer's garden arrangement, is breathtaking. This is a fragrance that reminds me why I became obsessed with perfume in the first place. I've already gone through a sample from several wears and showing it to friends, and I have a travel size coming soon. I see myself getting a full bottle down the line. This is bound to be my go-to S/S fragrance. 10/10

Tomoo Inaba is a very very creative Perfumer. Orchid Mantis is a very pretty floral fragrance, it is very nostalgic and vintagy reminds you of the good old days. I own moth and I can say they have the same similar DNA while Moth is the gothic sister, Orchid Mantis is the "bright" sister. To the scent itself to my nose, the Jasmine is very heavy here and dominate along with the Lady of the night flower and the green notes for the first 2 hours then after that it feels like you have entered a forest that it just finished raining, very humid with the whiffs of flowers from the background. Very unique and it will definitely make you stand out. Like every Zoologist sample before buy People say it is feminine, well I'm a male and I bought a full bottle of this pretty fragrance and I give it 10/10 Thank you Inaba for your work 🥰🤗

Imagine the most indolic ylang-ylang colliding with the most indolic jasmine, bound together with the sharp, almost feral bite of freshly cut grass. Then a deep, shadow-soaked moss rises through the composition: green, wet, and funereal; the scent of a night where the earth itself seems alive with restless spirits. Now the tale unfolds: This is the wedding perfume of the Corpse Bride. The flowers she clutches are wilted and water-logged, their vitality long surrendered to decay. She drifts forward in a slow, mournful glide across grass pushing up through bog-like soil, the ground soft, cold, and breathing beneath her feet. Gravestones loom, coated in velvet moss. Everywhere is dampness, darkness, rot; an eternal twilight where beauty and ruin hold hands. Wow. Tag(s): mossy, indolic, vintage-y, melancholic, decay

Very impressive to me. The opening is a tropical jungle as perceived in a dream state. That dream is pleasant and sunny but there is something lurking in the soil, making everything uncanny and unnerving. It's basically a David Lynch film in a bottle. There are 30,000 species of scented orchids, ranging in fragrance from rotting flesh to sweet jasmine/honey to cinnamon + chocolate. "Pink Orchid" means absolutely nothing in a photorealistic sense. This is high fantasy territory. The opening is all humidity + jungle sweat. The "green accord" is very present and smells like freshly cut leaves to me. The heart is of a musky tropical bouquet, positively dripping with nectar and hinting slyly at the inevitable rot and ferment underneath. Divine. One of zoologist's best to my nose.