M/Mink

I had only briefly heard about this fragrance, described as strange and unusual, something that tends to attract people’s attention and curiosity. I thought this fragrance might resemble a perfume created in Russia by a female perfumer under the independent brand Wild Drops Parfums. Her fragrance, which is no longer available for purchase (although I was lucky enough to buy it previously), was called CALLIGRAPHY. Notes: ▪️ Rice paper ▪️ Old parchment ▪️ Ink ▪️ Chinese ink The fragrance was dedicated to the art of calligraphy and the Japanese sumi-e painting technique. And it truly captured the smell of ink, paper, and parchment - you could actually detect all of these notes. And then I finally managed to get my hands on MINK by Byredo. I tried it - and what did I get? Sour incense. If you could make vinegar out of incense, this is exactly what it would smell like. This fragrance also reminds me somewhat of Armani Privé Bois d’Encens, but here it takes a very distinctly acetic turn. The fragrance is extremely long-lasting and intrusive. In the end, I had to wash it off - I simply couldn't tolerate the acidity and the heavy incense.

It was a strong no for me. Too beastly. It reminded me of a second-hand fur coat found in a thrift store. Animalic but not the good kind for me.

I've got this stuff for guitar playing called Gorilla Snot - it's a gooey sticky mix of pine resin and some other resins, and the middle of M/Mink smells surprisingly like it. Pine resin with a strong lacquer note. Over time a dark honey note emerges which is very enjoyable. The opening is weird, a few minutes of a fruity mix of apples followed by some sea note and yes, a hint of fecal-funk via indoles but it's never so strong - at least on my skin - to register as an accident in your pants. I suspect the indoles help contribute to the animalic quality of the dark honey note in the dry down so this relatively short phase of oddness is worth enduring, as the honey note is one of the best around.

this reminds me a great deal of when i worked in gardens. opens with a vague "pine" note (kind of like dr. bronner's sal suds) before moving into a more garden adjacent space. in particular it brings to mind cut ivy, clover, various crushed stems, and especially the oddly aromatic roots of freshly pulled privet starts. these are weird notes. privet root in particular is fascinating to me for its ability to simultaneously attract and repel. it is all surrounded by a fuzzy sweet mineral inkiness. one of the more avant garde scents i’ve encountered, which sits nicely alongside some of the jorum studio releases. not really animalic or pissy on me in the least. to me this ultimately smells of working in an oddly specific garden on an overcast humid day. really interesting.

similar vibes to Figment Man in my experience. I appreciate and own both, but they do require discernment on where and when to wear. do your thing.

Finally a blind buy of something "weird" that gets me excited over smelling myself. It's like my long discontinued darling Helmut Lang white musk and all the ditto machine fluid huffing I did as a child. And then the boyfriend who never says anything about the million bottles of perfume I rotate though with short attention span theatre.. tells me I smell like his dad. Old Spice and was it.. English Leather old man cologne? Ah yes, I get that. But come closer, I like it. Call me papa.

when they said "m/mink" they meant that the perfume smells like a cage full of minks who are spraying over each other. christ.

Smells like a newly-constructed concrete skatepark looks. Lots of angles and bits sticking out, deep swooping bowls, just a way to injure yourself to 98% of the population, irresistible to the rest of us. Absolutely do not try this before buying it; if you’re not fortunate enough to be naturally skilled, you just need to practice a bit. It makes my eyes hurt after a few hours, something I quite like but I can understand others not going for.

Another synthetic mess? Maybe not. The inky and salty notes are surrounded by a Lily note that is very indolic and realistic. From a distance it smells nice and interesting. It think it is a synthetic well done scent. I need to finish my sample. But it might be a candidate to my wish list.

M/Mink smells criminally dark. It’s ritualistic, not bloody, but as if the blood has been replaced with ink, thick, black, and cold. There’s a chill to it, something sterile and industrial, almost psychotic in its detachment. It feels like walking into a dimly lit space where something unspoken just happened. Cold, clinical, and unsettling. It even reminds me of the Netflix show Mask Girl when I wear it. That’s how hauntingly unique it is. I find it shares a strange, shadowy link with Ences Mythique by Guerlain, Prada Luna Rossa Black, and Clive Christian Amberwood. They all dwell in that same dark, mysterious space. Also, when patchouli is combined with honey, it gives an uncanny effect that’s hard to describe. You should try it for yourself and see what I mean.

Smells like a mix between a pet store and the house of someone who has too many pets.

This is what I wanted Squid by Zoologist to be (and it wasn't). Lots and lots of ink. Have you ever been a dumb kid who chewed on a cheap pen and managed to get ink in your mouth. Yea... I can almost taste it. There is also seaweed and/or algae. Notes of slight decay... And on top of that the whole thing is incredibly primal and skanky. Don't ask, I have no idea. It's WEIRD. M/Mink is seriously unique. I love and can't stand it at the same time.

This is not pissy/animalic/sweaty AT ALL. If I think about it very hard the adoxal might come off somewhat "eggwhite'y", but it's not something you pick out right on the spot. It opens with sharp green, metallic, camphoraceous, bitter aroma, reminiscent of household cleaning chemicals, then it transforms into a field of clovers that's being mowed and over time it gets a little sweetened up with honey. It's like you would put the most bitter stems and petals into a blender and blend it with honey and some kind of pine scented bleach. For the ones who have hard time imagining it the closest approximation would be green bitterness of Comme des Garcons 2 mixed with earthy, heady white florals of Beaufort Fathom V. The small amount of "ok" ratings is a testament to how polarizing this fragrance is - you just don't pass by it indifferently. I think people will wonder "whats that weird smell?" rather than "something smells bad". I find it very intriguing. Don't expect compliments with this one!

The first perfume to ever make me physically gag. The smell of soiled underwear at the beach.

One of the strangest fragrances I’ve smelled, the aldehydes remind me of like a bathroom cleaner on top of a stinky animalic, I can’t get the image of mold or something out of my head, like your trying to clean a gas station bathroom it feels like a memory of sometime that never happened. Don’t think I would ever really want to smell like this but appreciate just how strange this is, I don’t think others would notice it on you unless you overspray the hell out of it.

I don't love it I don't hate it but I'm kind of fascinated by it. It is so metallic, silvery, cold, bizarre and kind of dirty it's like a weird silvery inky fluid that you might see spilled on some surface and thought hmm what if I touch it? why do I want to touch it?? and you did then something just sort of goes horribly wrong

printer ink, sharpie, piss, my partner hated it

This is awful on me. It smells like a well-used public toilet on a scorching summer's day. It has to be the most unpleasant perfume I have ever smelt. I don't know why anyone would want to smell like an incontinent elderly tramp.

Definitely my favourite perfume from my favourite brand, Mink is stinky, animallic, arrogant scent, cold and sterille like all Byredo perfumes, I understand why people doesn't like it but I know why I love it!

Oh boy i wish i can write a review for this scent but i am sure it would be removed! Hate censorship! 🌚

I admire, wear, and love many scents from Byredo, but this is (except Eau de Space, nothing else can ever smell that bad) the worst scent I have ever tried. To me, it smells of blood, cold asphalt, and fear.

Love reading all the different experiences of this fragrance. For me, it smells like a men's restroom, specifically the urinal cakes. Funny how everyone has different takes on a fragrance.

Truly the female counterpart to YSL Kouros. I certainly would never wear it but I think it's an interesting scent to smell. Honestly if this one has come out back in the 1980s it would not even be considered controversial or weird at all lol.

I'm a sucker for a unique scent, and this is a real banger. Abstract floral índole and pissy honey mix with aldehydic shimmer and dirty patchouli providing an otherworldly, crazy, whimsical affair. Something about the sci-fi audacity is remniscent of Uncle Serge's more whacko scents (Fils de Joie for example, due to the crepuscular honey-índole haze). Oh, and the incense is very Lutens-y, and provides a smoky base for the mostly high-pitched opening to settle onto. Does it smell like ink? I'd say it does as much as Encre Noir does, but from a totally different angle. Honestly, they both serve some sort of inky element, but if it weren't suggested by the name and copy, I'm not sure it would occur to me. But that's fine, I think they've done a stellar job with this perfume. It's by far my favourite Byredo and the only one of theirs I could be bothered to seek out. I'm not sure when/where/if I can wear this, but I'll definitely rock it for myself of an evening, and perhaps will apply delicately in advance of going out to let it dry down before I take the metro! Side note: this is the same sort of crotchy wee smell as in Sadonaso, but here it's a lot more bold, so for all those who complained that Sadonaso wasn't shocking enough, maybr this could sate your thirst. Another side note: I'm starting to suspect that the sillage smells like actual urine with a little dash of urinal cake juice. Still love it though. More thoughts... Amazing on scorching hot days when you're outside! This is definitely one of the weirdest perfumes I have come across, and that's saying something as I'm a total fraghead and sucker for weirdness.

Context is definitely key for this one. Like a lot of the comments below have mentioned, this is a perfume best suited for the evenings when inhibitions might be lowered and a strong animalistic, musky and Ambery scent might be warranted. Don't even think about wearing this to the office unless your office is a barnyard or somewhere outdoors (Ha!). To me this smells slightly reminiscent of the woodiness/spicy component in DS&Durga's Pistachio. I haven't decided if I like it yet but these things take time.

I've managed to get my hands on a Swedish produced bottle of this fragrance, so I don't know how it smells right now, but oh boy is this a beauty! Hands down the best Byredo I have smelled, the most complex and non-linear, kind of dirty, skanky even, but it still has that Byredo sterility they kind of go for in every release. Starts with sweetened yolk, skanky ink and a pleasantly thin patchouli, throughout the day the honey shows through, and at that point it becomes a yolk stained fur scarf, very calming, without sacrificing any of the bite. The whole journey has a grounding warm human skin vibe to it. I also love the design of the box!

i love this one. to me its less feral as described a lot and more metallic, with that amber warmth only coming through once it dries and settles 1-2hrs in. i do get how it could smell funky but to me it’s simply reminiscent of paris (and nights spent there) which is where i first smelled and bought it. its definitely sexy in a sweaty kinda way. my signature scent ever since so i’m hoping the yearly rumors that it’ll be removed never become true

A small Lucchese boutique with animal hide rugs, exotic leather boots, suede and wool jackets and a small amount of curated select mink and silk coats; the luxurious fibers are impregnated with the scent of exotic leathers. I bought a short mink coat at this store and it still smells like this. MINK is a fluffy and cozy, yet luxe vibe instead of a dirty animalic musk.

I have no idea what actual Japanese writing ink smells like, of course, but if it is this then I really don't see why anyone would want to make a perfume out of it. I was told it smells like "art gallery" and that's a pretty good description, it smells like you're wearing something to get attention or to make a statement rather than to smell pleasant. Starts out VERY sharp with what I assume is the "ink" note, and then that gradually fades away to finally leave room for an actually pretty pleasing dark wood scent, but the ink note is always in the background, and, well, it doesn't sit well with me. Got the full bottle because I got it for a gift for someone who didn't want it and decided to keep it, and I've never looked forward to wearing it, so I'm glad the bottle is finally over and done with - and as this has been discontinued after only a few years, I guess it WAS more of an art project after all.

There's a number of animalic perfumes by niche houses created with stopping power in mind (Corpus Equus, Afrika Olifant etc), and this is by far one of my favorites. A distinctly pungent, pheromone-soaked affair that still manages to be completely wearable, it errs closer to the complexity of scents by Prin/Strangers Parfumerie than anything else by Byredo. Finally they made a fragrance that impressed me, so of course they discontinued it.