Malpaso Happyland Studio 2022

Malpaso is one of the most recent Happyland releases, a spicy, fresh, sharp expression featuring castoreum, citruses, and florals, primarily. It smells like a bit of a cousin of the suede-rich, earlier release, Man Shit / Hommeland Extreme. Malpaso is a bit more nuanced, pivoting almost toward one of the sharp iris-rich perfumes in the catalogue, so perhaps somewhere in between Hommeland Extreme and, say, Sundown. It’s definitely a bit easier on the nose and less edgy than Hommeland Extreme, just to put that out there, as much as I enjoy Hommeland Extreme as one of the house’s boldest undertakings. I think Malpaso smooths things over a bit better, though, with almost a lavender-type sharpness, paired with citruses and spices, to complement the central-but-not-overused dry, animalic note of castoreum. Really nicely done, with characteristically great performance and pricing from the line.

7 out of 10