Continuing my Maison Margiela discovery set. Still going in order, so the next one was Lazy Sunday Morning. I thought it would be funny to try this on a Sunday, but I didn’t want to ruin the order, so here we are. The opening is yet again very nice. Clean aldehydes, green and floral lily-of-the-valley, and sweet pear. In a few minutes you get the trio of florals: rose, iris, and orange blossom. Rose is the dominant one. The base is just musk and ambrette for me; I don’t get the patchouli. It’s a high-quality floral fabric softener on a clean, fresh-out-of-laundry linen sheet. Definitely not how my lazy Sunday afternoon smells 😂 but would I want it to smell like this? Heck yeah. Just when I thought I found my next purchase, the performance shut me up. It performs like an EDC with about 30 mins of projection and roughly 3-4 hrs of total lifespan. My skin is optimal today and, despite that, the performance sucked. I reapplied after a few hrs thinking I went nose blind, but nope. I’m noticing a pattern with MM and their fragrance performance. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt purely because this is a 2 1/2-year-old discovery set. If I don’t get good performance on any of them, I’ll be retesting with a new discovery set. I’ve not yet smelled something clean floral like this. Closest was Byredo Blanche. It’s so comforting and fuzzy. If I could wear something at home, it would be this DNA but with better performance. Assuming it’s a faulty sample, I’d give it an 8/10. I have nothing to complain about the profile; all my complaints are about the performance. There’s bad and then there’s unacceptable. Again, it could be that the samples expired or were stored incorrectly. Have you tried anything similar? Let me know.

A recent sample that I acquired during a decant order. This is a fresh green bright citrus. It opens with a sparkling mandarin orange and grapefruit, mint, and herbs. As it’s drying down I get orange blossom, more green/herbal elements, and a soft musky woody profile. Overall it’s zesty, green citrus freshness with a creamy, slightly aquatic edge. It’s high quality and blended well. Definitely for spring/summer daytime wear. Longevity is weak at 4-5 hours. Sillage/Projection is low, intimate and elegant rather than loud. There are a few houses that do this profile well: Acqua di Parma, TF, etc. I’m sure this is discontinued. I wouldn’t recommend seeking this out for big money, but I’m glad to have tried it.

Phew! Finally done building my new display shelves. They turned out OK, not great. I couldn’t get more of the same woodgrain tape that I used in my first set, so there’s a bit of a mismatch. But worse, as I was jamming the new shelves into the snug cabinet space, one of the cables tore out and now the bottom LED shelf won’t light up, which is kind of a bummer. That said, I think it still looks pretty good, and anyway I’m really happy that now I can have my full collection out - I’ve pretty much got the cold weather and transitional season frags on the lower shelves, and the year-round and warm weather frags on the top shelves. I might need to rejigger things a bit, but basically they’re pretty well organized. The new shelves give me space for just a few more bottles, which is good because I’ve set a personal goal not to get too many more. I’ve got a bottle of Oud Bleu Intense on the way and have my eye on maybe one or two more cool weather and one or two more year rounders. Then that’s it! I’m not gonna show the grab and go frags I keep on a bathroom shelf because then everyone will yell at me about not keeping them in the bathroom 🤪