Existence Amouage 2025

Update: I actually do love this.

I always give a sample at least 3 full wears before throwing in the towel, and here it paid off! (side note: I wish there were a requirement for reviewers to do multiple full wears before reviewing. I can't trust the words of someone who only wore it once and never again, my own included. And if you scrub after a half hour? You haven't even worn the fragrance, why would you feel qualified to review it?) Anyway after wearing it a few times I found myself absentmindedly browsing for a +/- 30ml decant and realized wow, I did a complete 180.

It's sharp and fuzzy like cotton mouth. It's kind of amazing how precariously the incense is balanced without it taking away from the freshness at all. Compared to Dia, Existence is more spikey, less soft and round, brighter - I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just different.

Existence is for a confident *grown* person, no doubt about it. More mature than Valaya or even Blanche. On that subject, the "smells similar" frags are...not similar. I mean Delina, Tilia, Guidance? Are y'all turning off your noses when you see QB's name on it? I can see *some* similarities with Blanche but it's still very different - to me Blanche is dry and boring fabric softener, Existence is not.

I want to touch on the seasonality as well. Looks like people tend to deem this spring/summer worthy but to me it's more fall/winter/chilly spring. It wears beautifully on frigid days here and makes me feel like a snow queen. I imagine it will be completely overbearing in heat.

____Original Review____
Mention Quentin B, Amouage, and aldehydes in the same sentence and I'm so down for it. Well here's reason number 547 why I don't do blind buys. The aldehydes here remind me of...halitosis? Idk, I love the frags this is often compared to, especially Tilia and Acne Studios. They're both fresh and clean and translucent, and Acne is so smooth and fuzzy. Existence feels sweaty, and not in that sexy way that works in perfumery. Industrial sort of? Like a detergent factory full of hard working employees. Not my thing. I can totally see this being enjoyable to others though.

Existence feels like a little bit of a throwback when compared to some of Amouage's latest women's offerings. It is the only women's perfume in the Odyssey collection, except perhaps Material, to feature that characteristic Amouage frankincense so prominently. Existence starts out with soapy, airy lily of the valley. A jammy rose wafts in and out, and both these beautiful florals last through the drydown. In the heart there's labdanum with its gorgeous honey and leather, and finally, I get the frankincense I love. But in the drydown there's a sweet fluffy synthetic-feeling musk, which is unfortunate since everything was so lovely up until that point. Bisch snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at the finish line: the musk pushes Existence into the no-buy column for me. If synthetic musk doesn't bother you--and it's near ubiquitous really--Existence is well worth trying. And I think it's worth noting that the first time I tried Bisch's Guidance Eau de Parfum, I was repulsed by the synthetic menthol note (Akigalawood), but with subsequent wears, it really grew on me. I hope the same will happen with the musk in Existence.

Ugh - here we go again. It feels like in the last 5 years (aptly summed as the post-COVID perfume market) there has been no bigger decline in brand image than for Amouage and for good reason too. However, I feel like Amouage's recent tragedy is tied to the choices being made in Oman by creative director Renaud Salmon with the biggest problem being perfumer Quentin Bisch: the fragrance world's flavor of the month (or decade) who is quoting 6 figures to make the same useless product time and time again.

Review off 3 wears, both indoors and outdoors - a proper full experience.

If you're surprised to hear that Existence has a synthetic opening then you clearly haven't kept up with Bisch's journey which kicked into 5th gear after the commercial success of Marc-Antoine Barrois' Ganymede Eau de Parfum. While not structured like Ganymede, Existence leans into the implied feeling of akigalawood and the scent opens synthetic-fresh-floral, meaning it is adjacent to products like Fleur Narcotique Eau de Parfum, Valaya Eau de Parfum, Tilia and many others. Overall, it is a struggle to place Existence in that continuum of products inspired by Fleur Narcotique as Existence also features a mild rose, the same one featured in Guidance Eau de Parfum, with the note being easier to detect on the strip.

While being in that continuum on its own isn't the biggest issue (outside of the lack of originality), this product features several other shortfalls. Time after time, I notice a bitter citrus-style note that adds a prominent chemical-like feel to the on-skin experience. On the first wear, I found that feel closer to champagne and with a mild touch of pear, the scent could've been in the realm of Vilhelm's Sparkling Jo. On this final wear as I am writing the review, the combination of musks & florals with that synthetic blend takes me closer to mustard (ouch). Outside of that, a lot of the pyramid never features in the scent's evolution. The combination of white florals & rose contrasting against the dominant synthetic structure are never opposed by any ambers nor smoky notes. The first wears had some sweetness in the heart, in the final wear that accord is more mild with the scent's main accords being floral-synthetic-fresh, but I'd assume that the rose is the key driver for the sweetness in Existence's composition.

The performance ratings on this are outrageously inflated as Existence is average on both longevity and sillage, I'd even argue that both are below the median 5/10 rating. The current ratings imply that the loud blast of synth fresh florals that Existence opens with remain throughout and that could not be further from the truth. True longevity on this trends closer to 6 hours than the 12-14 implies by those who have rated it thus far as the gap between this and others in the genre is noteworthy. The value on this is obviously below average: the scent competes in a genre that has north of a dozen alternatives with almost all of them being cheaper.

As Amouage launches more and more poor-to-mediocre product into the market with the goal of growing revenues at the mid-to-high teens (this means 15-20% per year for those not in finance), one has to wonder at what point the market punishes them for this. The brand's constant affiliate marketing (read: PR) might give off the impression that they are dropping top-of-the-market product, yet in all honesty, Amouage hasn't been a top 10 niche house product wise for years and with launches like Existence, I wouldn't be surprised if they drop out of the top 15 or even 20 in the near future.

Existence

It is a scent of painting and plain air. Very pleasant experience from my student days when we sat together with the other students in the summer in the wind painting between the wild flowers. I perceive the linen oil of the paint tubes, the sun and the wind of a not too hot summer day. It is possible that it is about the personal stored memories.
I expected a traditional lily of the valley but against all expectations it is another dimension of it. I perceive a very delicate mixture of a rose and abstract lily of the valley that becomes one where you can not separate them. I find it a sublime scent of a refined woman.
As the scent develops it becomes thicker and sweeter for a while after which it becomes transparent and soft again. It is very pleasant to perceive all these changes. I would not say that it is simple or linear.

I think of this as a frankincense fragrance first and foremost, with the muguet emphasizing the green facets of the resin and the white musk bringing forward its dusty, soft quality. All three of these notes blend so seamlessly into each other that they really become one in this incredible way, like a choir of voices. (I bet the rose helps blend them all together – rose is so great at that.) This harmony makes this fragrance feel expansive and moving to me – wide like the sky. It feels calming, soulful, spiritual, and whole.

I picked up a sample of this in-person on a vacation, and this is why I need to visit physical perfume stores more often. I never ever would have ordered this for myself based on the notes (I usually don’t care for lily-of-the-valley accords), but smelling her in the store – with no idea what the listed notes were – I was intrigued and wanted to take her home. I’m so glad I did – it’s become quite special to me.