Since the sad news earlier this week of Thierry Mugler passing away, Perfumeland was paying tribute to his contribution to the perfume landscape of the Western world. So, I decided that we could do our own remembrance topic.
Saturday Question #101:
Do You Have Any Mugler Perfumes In Your Collection?
It would we hard to find any perfumista who isn’t familiar with the most famous Mugler‘s perfume – Angel. And since this is one of the brands easily available in many stores, it doesn’t take much to get to try perfumes from the brand. But do you own any of this brand’s perfumes? We’re talking any size from a full bottle to decants – as long as you paid for it.
My Answer
I like the brand. I still own the first bottle of Angel that I bought about 20 years ago. I’m not sure that even when I bought it, it still was the original formulation (but back then I didn’t even think that a brand can produce another formulation of perfume under the same name, in the same packaging), but whatever it was, I loved it when I bought it, and I can tell that the scent has changed since when I bought it. It didn’t turn (I don’t think the formula contains anything that can go rancid), but something is different (and it’s not only the color of the juice). It’s still nice, and I wear it from time to time (but strictly when I stay at home). The last time I wore it was last Monday after I heard the news.
Since I loved Angel, I also bought Angel Taste of Fragrance. It’s nice, I like it and wear from time to time. At home. The only other full bottle from the brand that I have is A MEN Pure Havane that I bought for my vSO (I should probably spray it on him this weekend).
I liked Womanity, and thought of getting a small bottle of it, but settled for a mini bottle, a part of the set that also includes Angel, Angel EdT and Alien, none of which I wear. I have small decants of Oriental Express, Over The Musk and Supra Floral: I like wearing these from time to time, but I don’t think I’ll ever go for a bottle.
For a while I was obsessed with the coffret the brand created for Süskind‘s novel Perfumer, but not only the price was completely outside of what I could pay for perfume back then (or would pay now even though I could), but it wasn’t even available in the US, so I had to let it go.
How about you?
Undina's Looking Glass 
Scattered amongst the Marzipan clan bottles of Alien, Alien Musc Mysterieuse and decants of Muse and Aura. I thunked a bottle of Angel decades ago.
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Oh wait!! I also had a bottle of AMen which I loved and my dad borrowed about ten years ago and never returned.
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This made me smile: those Dads!
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I love sharing with family and friends. It’s what makes this hobby so wonderful.
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Your Dad has mighty fine perfume taste Brigitte. Mine wore Tabac Original, which is lovely but no A*Men.
Portia xx
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Oh gosh I love Tabac original!! I had my own bottle but my dad borrowed that one too lol
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HA HA HA HA HA!
OK, well it was the first perfume I ever reviewed on APJ. I love to throw some in a cool bath in Summer.
Portia xx
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Aura bottle is so unusual that I’m drawn to it, but I’m resisting because I don’t think I will wear that perfume (and I ran out of space on my perfume shelves :) ).
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Unfortunately I don’t have that bottle but I have very large decant ;)
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I have not explored Mugler that much. I have a full bottle of Womanity, which I love, also a mini of Alien, and a couple of samples of Oriental Express. I swapped all my bottles, decants, and minis of Angel and Angel Muse. Angel and its flankers never worked for me.
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While I was contemplating purchase of Angel Innocent (but decided against), I wasn’t tempted by other Angel flankers (other than ToF) – not because I disliked them but rather because they were too reminiscent of the original.
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My first bottle of Mugler was Alien. Followed by minis of Alien Sunessence and Alien Eau Extraordinaire. I have a travel spray size of Innocent and a small bottle of Alien Fusion (mostly bought that for the red bottle!!!). Angel is kryptonite on my skin for some reason. Hate it. Have sampled Angel Muse and Angel Nova and those were tolerable. Of all of these, I might enjoy Alien Sunessence the most, in the summer – sunny citrus on top of the original.
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Alien somehow has never found its way into my wearing schedule, even though I didn’t dislike it and, in addition to the mini bottle, periodically had samples of many flankers.
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Hey MMKinPA,
My BFF was given a bottle of the yellow bottled 2009 Sunessence when it came out and I found her some after it was DCd but it’s become WAY too expensive to buy her anymore.
She smelled wonderful in it, I bet you do too.
Portia x
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I have a few Muglers that I love, Angel Muse, Angel Essence Absolue and Alien Fusion, plus samples of Supra Floral and Oriental Express – both fbw but a bit spendy for my pocket, given that I have so many bottles already. A small confession🙈 I recently got into the car with my niece and asked her what she was wearing that smelled wonderful. It was only my very own personal nemesis, Angel! She also had the hair mist on. Perhaps there’s something different in the reformulation since I tried it many years ago. It almost knocked me flat and gave me a headache back then.
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Alien Fusion was a love at first sniff for me, where as my other Mugler favorites took a while to seem like “me.”
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Same here! I went back a couple of days after I tested it and bought it.
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Angel has been reformulated multiple times, I’m positive! I would love to be able to go back and re-sniff the original one: it was something so bizarre and unusual! But I understand how it could be a problem for sensitive people.
If not applied heavily, especially as a hair mist, it might smell really good on others.
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I’m going to try it again. I’ll put my big girl pants on and go for it😉
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Oh love you would have hated me…my Angel wearing days were double digit sprays…. that’s how I rolled decades ago.
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Angel was the La Vie est Belle of the 90s. Everyone with a heavy trigger finger. But I’m guilty of being heavy on the trigger myself, even with the heavier ‘fumes😉
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Haha!! You only live once…spray away!!
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The only Mugler I own now is Alien Les Parfums de Cuir. It was a holy grail for me to find this, mostly for the bottle. I’ve worn the actual juice maybe twice. I find it a bit much in the heat but maybe a really cold day will temper the scent.
I’ve rehomed Alien and Alien Violette to someone who loves them!
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I don’t think I tried that flanker.., I might have but I stopped noticing new flankers at some point.
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I never liked Angel or Alien…but I fell in mad love with Angel Muse berries, patchouli, hazelnut creme and vetiver, and later Womanity with all it’s grapefruit, figgy caviar accord. I worked in a store that dispensed refills for Angel and Alien for far too many years. Could not get that juice off my hand fast enough!! I adored the smell of rubber and coffee though in A-Men!!
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You described Angel Muse so appealing that now I just have to find it in the store and try again!
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What a shame about Thierry, he was so inspirational to my fashion studies and later to theatre costume and then drag. He came to Australia a few times and he copied the Foam Wigs that Aussie drag queens are famous for and used them on the runway. We hung out with him a few times and all thought he was so gorgeous.
There are quite a few of his perfumes in my cupboards but only Womanity and Kryptomint get any regular wear.
Portia xx
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I have no idea how I missed Kryptomint! I’m sure I would have loved it.
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It was panned by most of the perfumistas but I love it so much Undina. Super minty version of A*Men.
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Oh wow- how cool is that! Thanks for sharing – I love little personal anecdotes like this. I don’t know that Mugler influenced me but I was definitely inspired by his BIG TALENT.
I don’t think I ever tried Kryptomint??
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Kryptomint is as minty as you could ever imagine the original formula to push it. OTT!
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I have Angel Muse and Aura, but more out of curiosity than anything else. I don’t hate them but I rarely wear them. I do like their bottles, though!
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I love many of Mugler’s bottles, and I don’t dislike perfumes. I just never choose to wear any but Angel/Angel ToF – but usually at home and mostly out of nostalgia.
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I have a bottle of Supra Floral and is extremely pretty and somewhat unMugler.
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I agree! It’s different. I like it, but probably not a fbw for me (at least I think so now when I still have my decant).
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I have sampled these:
Naughty Fruity
Pivoine Angel
Le Lys Angel
Womanity
Cuir Impertinent
Alien
Alien Extraordinaire
A Travers
Pure Havane
I own these:
Alien Essence Absolue
Alien Extraordinaire
Alien Les Parfums de Cuir
A*men
Pure Wood
Miroir de Voluptes
Angel
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How do you find Le Cuir? I ask because I have my eye on a bottle for a good price, and I’m partial to a bit of leather. Is it on the suede end of the spectrum or on the burnt tar end?
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I was soooo curious about their Mirror line, but I never saw any of them in the store, and Mugler isn’t a line for samples from which I was willing to pay.
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I have an old bottle of Angel kicking around somewhere, but it doesn’t get much wear anymore. There are so many riffs on that fragrance, original in the day, and I like others better now. But about ten years ago I tested a lot of the flankers he put out every year for his main collection. My favorite of his is Womanity. It is still unique and it’s definitely the most original fig I own. I love it! (I also love BDK Gris Charnal. Does anyone else who’ve tried both see any similarity between them?) The one that has always confounded me is Alien. I love every single jasmine perfume I’ve ever tried but this one. There was something very unsettling about it to me, so I guess it is well named. RIP Thierry Muglur. There seems to be so many deaths of men in their young 70s lately.
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I need to try them in parallel since I don’t remember Gris Charnal (other than that I liked it when I tried it), but now I’m curious.
I like Alien from afar, but I don’t think I’ve ever worn it.
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Like so many fragrant folks, I love to smell Angel on others, but it does not work for me. I dab a bit from my mini of the edt sometimes just to appreciate it. I did get the Fruity Fair flanker because the bottle was pretty and I thought a fruity version might be better. It is okay; I keep it around in case I have a change of heart! I have and love Alien edp and Fusion, and all the Aura versions. I used to like eau sensuelle best, but all three Auras kept calling to me and now I own and love them all equally. M. Mugler had a genius with fragrance creation. I have tested 5 or 6 others and all were intriguing, if not my chypre-loving style.
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For me, the EdT was OK, but it’s not just a different concentration of the same perfume, it’s different from the original Angel. I do not mind it, but if I don’t wear Angel, I’m even less inclined to wear that version.
But I agree with you that they make interesting perfumes.
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No Muglers in my collection. I appreciate the genius of Angel, but it’s just too strong for me to enjoy wearing it.
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Interesting! I think you’re the first person in this thread so far who doesn’t own any of Mugler’s perfumes. But I understand what you mean: Angel is nuclear.
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Angel is something else, but it felt like wearing a costume when I tried it a long time ago and not like “me.” I revisited it about a month ago in a store and stumbled across Alien Goddess, which I thought of getting. Currently I don’t have any Mugler perfumes in my collection.
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As soon as I posted my answer to rickyrebarko’s comment above, I read your comment – and you are the second person who doesn’t have perfumes from this brand (yet). Partially it explains probably by the fact that your hobby’s “onset” happened when niche market was already so saturated that there were more interesting targets to explore.
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I’ve had to check my list of perfumes….I’ve got Angel…..Angel Innocent and Alien Mirage.
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Hey Matty,
That Angel Innocent was in a super pretty bottle too if I remember rightly?
Portia xx
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The reason that I had to consult my perfume list is because I knew that I had some Mugler but it was packed away in boxes with loads of other perfumes. I can’t even remember what the bottle of Innocent looks like !!!!!
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HA! That is a true perfumista problem if ever there was one.
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It is isn’t it !!!! I looked on Fragantica to see what the bottle looks like. It is very pretty.
Last year one of my Grandaughters came round to help me pack up perfumes in boxes. She packed the boxes and I wrote down which perfumes were in the boxes and put the list in the full box. Not very scientific but it’s better than nothing. All my Guerlains are in a seperate box.
As you know I’m in the UK. I buy the boxes from store called The Works. They are 2 for £10 and have designs on them. They also hold quite a lot of perfumes. If you can have a look at their website in Aus you will see what I mean.
Apologies for rambling on !!!
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Matty,
I also have quite similar boxes in my cupboards. FULL to the brim.
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So are mine !!!!!
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I came close to getting Angel Innocent a couple of times but has never gone through.
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No, I don’t, not anymore. Interested to hear your Angel bottle has changed how it smells – I think mine may have actually turned, though I am not 100% sure. Thank you for reminding me of Womanity, which was one I was struggling to remember in my (fortuitously similar-themed!) post. ;) Looking at the comments above, there are many perfumes in the line I have never tried or even heard of.
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I wasn’t following all the flankers of Angel and Alien, but main releases were on my radar (and stayed there without a collision with my collection, if to stretch that metaphor).
With Angel, of course, it’s possible that my nose has changed… But I’ll blame the juice! ;)
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I currently own Cologne, Alien Essence Absolute (which I bought on a whim when it first came out), Alien Musc, Womanity and Womanity Liquers, Angel Muse and cute travel spray of the newest Alien Goddess which is a surprisingly nice beach scent.
I used to have A Travers Mirrors (??) and Orient Express but sold both. I kind of miss Travers it was such an unusual tuberose.
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I planned to get Cologne for my vSO but somehow it has never come to fruition. I wanted to see yesterday what my local Nordstrom has from this brand and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that they had just 3 perfumes – Angel, some Angel flanker in a red star-shaped bottle and Alien. Disappointing.
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I’m number 3 of the non-owners. I have owned Angel twice but sold it twice. I’ve also had Angel ToF, Angel Sucre. Alien Sunessence, Innocence A*Men Havane & A*Men ToF.
Innocence got thunked pretty quickly & is impossible to find in the UK now.
A*Men ToF got nicked by DH & has been hidden from me.
Everything else got sold.
Womanity was just another evil riff on ELDO SM 🤢 & Aura is supersweetened overboiled cabbage 🤮 to me.
If anyone reading this in the UK has a bottle of Innocence in need of a living home, I’m your girl!
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Your “twice”for owning/selling Angel sounded funny.
I hope you’ll find a bottle you’re looking for.
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Timely question, dear Undina. I have Angel, A*Men and Alien Essence Absolute. Out of the three, I’ve worn A*Men most recently, a few days before the designer’s death.
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It was interesting to see how many perfumistas had Mugler perfumes in their collections. And I enjoyed seeing all the admiration people expressed towards the person behind the brand.
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Me too, Undina. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so many posts around the same event. Says a lot about his influence.
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Womanity! I couldn’t wear Angel; scrubber for me. I haven’t tried (m)any others. I think???
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We agree on Womanity :)
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