Muse Yves Saint Laurent 2025

Here it is, the new “Muse” Eau de Parfum. I have been eagerly waiting for this perfume over the last few days. Admittedly, a bit of skepticism crept in over time. Not because of the listed notes, but rather because one of the marketing images features a very stylishly dressed woman. Is it too feminine for me and will it spoil the notes? Well, I thought to myself, you don't have to ruin it now, after all, it is listed as Unisex and the notes suggest a surely good spring-like scent!?

What did I get? A perfume!
Surely, some might think, that’s just a perfume, what else could it be!
No. I mean a perfume that smells of the highest form of French perfume art. This must have been what the old classical perfume school looked like, transforming natural ingredients into art.

It is not a hastily thrown-together scent.
Someone has put serious thought into this.
It is a creative masterpiece.

The scent starts off a bit rough, if you are not familiar with ink in fragrances. But who doesn’t know the smell of ink? I think pretty much everyone has accidentally stained their fingers with it in their youth ;)
I liked the smell back then.

A brief history of ink - Source: tinte24.de
No, this time it wasn’t the Swiss. The first written documents date back to 5000 BC from the ancient Egyptians. They wrote with reeds on papyrus and were already able to use black and red inks back then. The inks were made from soot (black) or iron oxide-containing earths (red), along with water and a gummy binder.
Independent of the Egyptians, the Chinese began writing with ink around 2600 BC: They applied a kind of lacquer with a bamboo stick. It was many years later that the Chinese started to produce their ink from soot as well. They burned lacquer and softwood charcoal, pressed the soot into sticks, and ground this dry pigment in water until it could be used for writing.
Also widely used in the past was squid ink. The first mentions in Europe can be found in the writings of the Roman author Cicero (106 to 43 BC).

Interesting what is written there, I didn’t know that until now!
Let’s get back to the scent.

So the ink is present right from the start.
After 3 minutes, it becomes slightly floral-violet with a gentle depth. The frankincense is also immediately present and plays a really nice supporting role. The ambrette seed is very animalistic and polarizing. The combination of ambrette seed and iris absolute brings a fine leatheriness, and it is subtly powdery as well. Of course, the ink from the beginning is still there and gradually takes on a slightly sweeter, yet somehow fresh quality.
The vanilla is well noticeable, but so light that it hardly stands out.

I see the scent as 100% Unisex.
I can imagine it being incredibly attractive on stylishly dressed women.
On confident men, it surely has the same effect on the opposite sex.

After applying it, I immediately had associations with my last trip to Paris last year.
I strolled through this fascinating city, the weather was great, the people happy, food at every corner, the whole city smelled of Muse, the subway, the alleys, the museums.

Wonderful and totally incredible that they managed to capture this beautiful city in a scent.

In any case, this scent has awakened something in me.
The desire to take a little trip to the city of love again in spring.