Dancing on the Moon Maison Margiela 2016

Was my favorite perfume and my only bottle when I started adulthood, I have fond memory of it but I don't want to wear it anymore so I keep the bottle as a keepsake. I don't know if the reformulated new dancing on the moon has changed much. But I recall an odd perfume, with a mix of mineral notes and white flower, giving a very rounded vibe to the perfume.

At first, I thought wow delicious!
A beautiful fruity, floral, and intense scent that you can rock in the summer, on vacation, or at the beach.
Later, I noticed that the scent reminds me extremely (and I mean not at all the fragrance notes) of Erba Pura. This extremely fruity, extremely loud, and intrusive.
The fragrance is definitely not for everyone. I would recommend testing it 1-2 times beforehand.

... between "That's interesting" and "no, it's annoying me." For me, it still manages to stay on track. But first, thanks to the sample giver.

I believe the problem with this fragrance is that on one hand, it comes across as so harmless and friendly with its white floral notes. Then there's the excessively overused amber base along with comforting vanilla. But then a salty-aquatic accord settles over the flowers. I think since Womanity and Olympea, this has triggered a massive flight response in some perfumistas. And then there are aldehydes, which are mainly associated with the classic heavyweights from way back in the nineteen hundreds. All of this is quite daring, but for a wow effect, it’s just not refined enough.

So is it boring, annoying, or actually quite good? I would say the latter, if worn only occasionally. At its core, the fragrance is simply a gentle and floral summer scent. The coconut note probably comes from vanilla and datura, I assume. The latter has a rather characteristic heavy scent, which has been very subtly dosed here. But with the vanilla, it also reminds me a bit of coconut. The salty note fades over time, and the jasmine becomes heavier, blending with the rest into a skin-close but quite heavy and sweet evening floral mix. Since datura isn't often used in perfumes, that's the only thing preventing the scent from becoming completely generic. But whether one appreciates a somewhat restrained datura in a sultry-amber jasmine bed, especially after a rather airy-light scent progression, is a matter of taste. It's somewhat disharmonious but interesting and certainly not unpleasant.

I don't find it too bad. But for me, it would be one of those fragrance candidates that I would joyfully wear once a year, but if worn more often, it would annoy me because of the base. It stands in too much contradiction to the rest. Imagine listening to a fairly simple song on the radio but with some strange background noises that, while not disturbing, also don't quite fit.

So definitely wear it for a day before buying.