Midnight Poison, my missed opportunity, my FOMO kryptonite, my obsession, lost and found. This is a love letter through time and space.
It’s 2007, I’m in my senior year at university. I watch TV to switch off my overloaded brain and catch my breath amid the non-stop anxiety of essays and exams. During the ad break, I’m about to leave my easy chair to make a cup of tea, when amid the clips showing off gleeful families with fluorescent teeth, deliriously happy about their new laundry detergent, magic begins.
I’m caught off guard, I stop midstep. The hauntingly beautiful, hysterical music holds me in its thrall as I watch a dark fairy tale of naughty Cinderella gate-crushing the party and making everyone gasp as she jumps from the banister and flies over the crowd like a wrecking ball, clutching the rope with her black nails, her electric blue gown billowing behind like bat wings.
By the setting and the dress, I can immediately tell it’s a perfume commercial, nevertheless it’s nothing like I’ve seen before. I’m intrigued.
That’s how two of my obsessions started. MUSE and Midnight Poison.
I immediately run to our family desktop and search for the title of the song that played in this video. That’s an instant crush and Mattew Bellamy’s ecstatic vocals would become the soundtrack to my life for years to come.
It’s not that simple with the perfume, though.
I wanted to try it so badly, I was absolutely certain I’d love it. Yet no way my broke college self could afford something from a luxury brand.
Three years later I’m at Sephora with a friend. I am an exchange grad student with a generous stipend, so I am determined to walk out of here with my dream perfume. I dash to Dior’s stand, I grasp the dark-blue bottle of Midnight Poison, spray it on my wrist, and immediately put my nose to my skin.
Oh no! No-no-no-no-no-no. It’s some masculine cologne! Where’s the dark velvety softness? Where’s sweetness and richness? Where’s everything I expected?
I’m so disappointed I could cry. My kind friend suggests I give it several minutes to settle and develop, but when citruses give way to dark and bitter patchouli, I am finally convinced to pass on this one. I end up settling for agreeable Nina by Nina Ricci and leave the store a bit heartbroken.
Ten more years elapsed. I have behind me a lot of hard decisions, changes, and losses. I am in a new city and MUSE once again heals my soul. When “Space Dementia” starts on shuffle, it reminds me about this mysterious perfume that I didn’t get. I am curious, so I go online to see how much it is nowadays.
And I find out it’s discontinued. It’s gone. It’s lost. It’s no more. Instead of online stores, I find links to pages and pages of people lamenting this untimely demise and declaring their undying love for this unparalleled fragrance, that nothing, NOTHING can ever replace.
For the few remaining bottles, the prices are exorbitant, so I strike out the option of ever owning the original from my plans and fall into the rabbit hole of forums, reviews, catalogs, comparisons, and replacement suggestions.
I find a few candidates. Along the way, I also find out that people can be passionately devoted, even religious about perfumes, and Midnight Poison definitely enjoys a cult-like following. For every suggestion of something similar, there is an equal number of upvotes and downvotes. People cannot agree on anything. I am as intrigued as I was when I first saw that TV ad — ten times as much now.
Dark, mystical, sweet, oriental — that’s exactly what I expected it to be. Can it be that my nose was wrong all those years ago?
I order a generic copy from a local manufacturer just to assess it anew. And it’s gorgeous, even if a bit old-fashioned. What? I don’t remember it smelling so beautifully. Why?
I MUST HAVE IT!
I track one of the more or less affordable dupes recommended by the community and give it a try. It’s a bit more spicy than the generic I tried, but still lovely. Can it be that I’ve made a horrible mistake all those years ago? I kick myself for not giving it more time to develop or just grabbing the biggest bottle available just to have it. I must have it!
My husband listens to me going on obsessively about Midnight Poison and one evening produces a small vial with a dark blue cap — a precious decant of the original. Even before I unveil the many layers of bubble wrap it’s lovingly swaddled into, I begin to perceive something painfully familiar, something that makes me nostalgic and wistful, something that brings me back. Far back, farther than that first sniff at Sephora, farther than the Goth Cinderella TV ad. Way-way back to my childhood.
It’s the sweet smell of rose and vanilla that emanated from a coral-colored clamshell box my mother gave me to play with when I was maybe four or five. It looked like a powder case, but inside it, there were grooves in white plastic — beds that used to host tiny vials of oil perfumes — or so my mother told me, I only remember the empty box and the smell.
The smell… Soft and caressing as sunlight, sweet as summer fruit, warm as beach sand. It’s the smell of dreams lost in the mists of time, safe childcare rooms, happy storybooks, my first summer by the sea.
Why does this perfume smell so different to what I remember trying it in the store? Why does it speak to my soul now?
When I wear it, I feel safe and loved. I feel invincible. I feel beautiful, strong, worthy. I don’t know why other people love Midnight Poison — they must have their unique personal reasons. But for me, it’s the smell of my mother’s love, before she became anxious and depressed. When she was young and happy, still used perfumes and eyeshadows, danced at parties — and didn’t cry.
It’s the smell of safety and happiness, before distress, before the world became bleak and hostile. It’s the smell of a fairy tale before it became real.
Midnight Poison smells of roses reminding me of my lost home — a land that was famous for the rose oil industry, among other things. It smells of vanilla — sweet, warm, and delectable. Yet it has this dark and melancholic side to it, making it strong and beguiling instead of saccharine and soppy. Those citruses and patchouli that scared me off when I wasn’t ready empower me now. They are there to ward off evil, to shield against all nastiness in the world.
I eventually saved up and I got myself a full bottle of it. Not because it’s discontinued and rare, a true gem to have in any collection (and my collection that started with attempts to find a dupe for Midnight Poison is now spiraling out of control).
No. It’s because of how it makes me feel and what it conjures up from the depth of my memory. It gives me the peace that I lost and the confidence that I always lacked. It completes me and makes me an enchantress who has the power to shape the world as she pleases. An irresistible beautiful witch who can do anything — if she wishes to.
Perfumes are real magic potions — now I know it. The only trick is to find the one that fits you just so. I am one of those unfortunate souls whose potion was discontinued — or fortunate enough to find something so perfectly fitting. That’s a matter of perspective.
Look for yours before it’s lost forever. I promise it exists — your elixir of power, your breath of life, your secret weapon, your consolation, your window to the past — or future, perfumes can do that, you know. Look, try, sniff, perceive, be insatiable — close your eyes and let your heart decide what it desires. This journey, however long, is worth every twist and turn.
Top Notes 
Bergamot
Mandarin orange
Heart Notes 
Rose
Base Notes 
Patchouli
Amber
Vanilla
Jazzy76
FLilla
Matux
FrauKirsche
Salva
Miro
Yatagan
Schalkerin
Sweetsmell75
Greenfan1701
Damascus
