Miyako
Auphorie (2015)

I honestly don't understand the hype for this one. I've owned and loved many from this house, and I'm also a lover of vintage chypres. So this one should have been a homerun. But it came across to me as ... just nice? Uninspiring and it didn't hold my interest, despite how much I wanted it to. *shrug*

Imagine a bond girl in a slinky black dress,open back,cigarette holder in hand,red lipstick, diamond earrings swinging from her ears.every drop of this precious potion is like magic.to me it smells classy and decadent and yet it wouldn't make "Hey, look at me,i'm wearing a perfume" entrance.the scent of a person who wants to be in yourself. what's beautiful about this perfume is it's dynamics:it keeps changing every hour,the scent is a bit different every time i smell my wrist.

The apricot absolute is very apparent on the first spritz.the yuzu adds some brightness. combined with the apricot absolute it adds an aromatic fattiness to the opening.soon the osmanthus make their entrance.the green tea adds a slight mentholated green note while the element of the oily fattiness persists.as the heart notes melt into the base the powdery musky woody and maybe some leather appears and it is the finest quality. the accords are presented in such a felicity of union that this perfume can best be described as music for my nose.

The beauty of this is that it feels totally natural. It smells like you are really smelling osmanthus and a garden of exotic fruits and flowers. But it's not overly floral in a perfumey way like, say, Arpege or Joy.

These brothers have created a perfume that utterly transports me to an exotic but unnamable tropical garden. Good on them!

I find projection, development and longevity to be very good.

Strange and wonderful. I finally made my peace with Miyako. Mostly, fragrances are about balance. In few instances does it make more difference than here. I've worn it three or four times, and each time I wondered where the topnotes were - the apricot, yuzu, peach. It always opens very equestrian on me. A big horsey leather dominates the scent on my skin. So it turns this fragrance into something other than an osmanthus fruity floral. All those notes just do background service to the leather (which they do well - osmanthus always works with leathers). Once I figured this out, everything else clicked into place. It's as if I'm smelling a different version than others are smelling, a flanker - “Miyako Equestre”.

Another interesting thing about this fragrance. Outside in cool air, the leather recedes, the fruity-florals come forward and I think at this point I'm experiencing more what others are smelling - it becomes more beautiful. It's a very solid fragrance in cold air. But it's so odd it reacts this way, being a fragrance created in a more warm, humid climate. What comes out on me in the cold is what is present for others at room temperature. And yet, because it is a strong, dense fragrance, it's not the type I'd wear outside.

So Miyako is an ambivalent wear for me. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make it become reliable. I still like smelling it - osmanthus is such an unusual chameleon of a mud flower to me. This is one of those fragrances I can't wear, and put in a collection of other samples I love but can't wear, and bring out to smell once in a while. They each have something that really speaks to me, that I want to keep around and experience, though I can't wear them. I have a small wood box with a lid for these samples, to keep them available, so I can smell one or the other of them from time to time. It's a different level of appreciation for these beauties, so I can enjoy them on their own terms.

But as a skin art, one to live with, no.

It's good but I'm not blown away? Maybe I need to use more, but the sample is rather small.
I'll report back

I could call Auphorie Miyako (2015) the "Ozymandius of Osmanthus" and basically be done with the review, but I don't want to short-change anyone. The truth of the matter is Miyako represents a "Maximalist" take on one of the most popular genres in women's perfume: the fruity floral. Just like cut-and-dry aquatics, the fruity floral is probably one of my least favorite genres, as they've been done to death and also like aquatics, almost certainly smell like a dressier version of some body wash or shampoo I've sniffed somewhere whilst shopping for groceries. However, Miyako represents something bigger and bolder than that, so it was worth the sniff even if just for the self-edification. The sibling perfumer team of Eugene and Emyrs Au have presented golden osmanthus - a favorite in mainland Asia - wrapped in apricot and yuzu on a leathery bed of woods and musk. It won't win over anyone not a fan of these notes, but it's quite creative and more powerful than the average fruit basket mall perfume. Hailing from Malaysia, Auphorie tends to factor in a lot of the local culture with their creations, and those familiar with the artisinal house will not be surprised by Miyako.

The scent of Miyako opens with a crescendo of fruit, slamming the nose without apology or subtlety. Fruity florals tend to be very apologist in nature when made by designers; they're usually thin, transparent, relying on a lot of citrus and delicate white florals. With Miyako, an old-school pre-WWII loud randiness is applied to the genre, and the fruit rushes forward with the power of your mother's Tabu (1941), then dries down to an earthy base. Apricot, peach, and yuzu smell like an opened can of Goya nectar, leading into the eventual osmanthus note of the heart. A jasmine indole note makes Miyako a lot dirtier than any fruity floral you'll encounter in Ulta or Sephora, while a green tea note assists in the dry down to the eventual leather in the base. Cedar, sandalwood, and the exotic hinoki wood are claimed to be in the base, but I get no separation with them, and read a giant "blob woods" note swaddled in patchouli and musk, which eventually come to overtake the leather too. This is extrait so longevity is immortal, with close diffusion.

That opening Smucker's fruit jam accord is the real maker or breaker with Miyako, followed by the osmanthus, as the rest of the wear is sweet woods and musk with a leathery tinge that from afar could be a lot of things. The perfume is certainly quality, and is very dense, blended, and will give fans of the style plenty to savor, but is just a bit too cloying for me. Miyako is labeled unisex but this style traditionally appeals more to feminine tastes, but that doesn't mean a guy who loves stuff like Joop! Homme (1989) won't find some synergy with Miyako, making it worth a sniff. Neutral is the highest I can rate this as per my own tastes, but I can understand the hype surrounding Miyako from perfumistas fond of rich, fruity florals that have solid non-synthetic foundations. Miyako is quite the rare bird in that it delivers it's theme in a rather opaque style, it's just not something I could ever see myself reaching for despite this distinction. Regardless, I implore seeking this out for folks who want something in this vein with enough gumption to withstand the cold, which is where most other fruity florals and "fruitchouli" perfumes fail.

An osmanthus heaven. A Chinoiserie painting. A complex tapestry with thread of osmanthus, apricot, tea, hinoki and animalic musk woven into an exotic Far East garden. ...
Definitely worths the award!

Auphorie typifies a strain of indie maximalism and Miyako is their gale force creation.
An anecdote: while we had house guests who had been sampling my collection, my normally non-perfume wearing partner decided to pick up a random bottle and spray himself. His hand alighted on Miyako and he went for the three to four sprays that are usually a happy mean for most perfumes. A perfume bomb exploded. We went to an open air event and a cloud of Miyako enveloped us and emanated far beyond – other people gave us dodgy looks. By lunchtime we had had enough and begged him to wash some of it off. Thus, ‘beast mode' hunters, look no further. The rest – be warned and use with discretion.
No prior perfume quite matches Miyako's golden effulgence, a wave of (over)ripe peach and apricot breaks first over the wearer, the scent concentrated, jammy, before it starts letting some air in and opening out to the matching floral note around which Miyako is centred – the fruity-leathery osmanthus blossom. There are delicious tart accents and before long a worn and sweaty leather comes into play; it's a scent close to decaying flowers, offering a touch of gravitas in what is perhaps an over-indulgent creation. At the far periphery is a suggestion of something spice-like – perhaps the tea and wood notes mentioned? The play of decadent and sombre elements in Miyako is at the heart of its power and mystery, and why, like old age, it's not for sissies. Miyako is like an eternal sunset, suffused in peachy radiance and yet touched by regret for the fading day.
The Au brothers are nothing if not daring, and in Miyako they hold back nothing in terms of the sweet cloying nature of osmanthus, but at the same time they make it majestically diffusive, bringing a dimension of great spaciousness that makes it a perfume to inhabit rather than a head-throbber. Miyako smells far fresher, brighter and downright juicy fruitier on a paper strip than it does on skin, and sometimes I catch myself wishing that Auphorie would release a version that would ditch the leather and smell like that on the wearer, too.

I have completely soured on Auphorie as a brand.

When Miyako was released, it came in a 30 ml bottle and cost $110. Thanks to Luca Turin and the Auphorie brothers, it is now $208 for a 15 ml bottle...twice the price for half the amount of perfume. Math is not my strong point, but I'm pretty sure this means it has now increased in cost by 400%.

In addition to this astonishing price hike, Auphorie's customer service is nonexistent at best, and rude and thoughtless at worst.

I have gone back and forth in my estimation of Miyako as a scent, but its brand's business practices, tip my evaluation into the negative.

Upon the first initial spray I am overwhelmed by a greatness of apricot, yuzu, and peach. These notes pulse as if thrown in a blender. The osmanthus and jasmine-tea are earthy yet sweet. Only a distant hint of leather. The woods and patchouli - they create a false incense mirage. This is dark. Warm. Caramel-like. Genius!

I experience Miyako in two phases. First the fruits, oily notes of peach and apricot that I am indifferent to. The second half is a leathery osmanthus with tea, a beautiful affair. But it's rather quiet on my skin around this time, and once it develops further and arrives at a dry down of woods and musk, I have to dig my nose into my arms to perceive it. While I understand it's natural and oil based, I would love it to have had a lot more sillage. Otherwise it's charming, and longevity on fabric is tremendous. Lovely, but sadly not functional enough for this user.

3/5

Miyako, a winner of The Art and Olfaction Awards 2016, wows me with it's fruity yet earthy opening of dried apricots, swiftly followed by its fresh osmanthus flowers and its compelling and distinct note of rough, animalic leather. When the base creeps up, there is something distinctly green about it. A couple of hours into the drydown, I get an almost chocolatey effect that I find very comforting. I also notice something that smells like incense, as though it is clinging to the skin and hair after having walked out of a sacred temple.

This perfume is like a lesson in abstract art. There are so many notes tumbling around, weaving in and out of one another. You have the darkness of earthy notes and brightness of botanical notes contrasting one another with every fascinating inhalation.

Miyako showcases what perfumers can achieve with modern botanical interpretations of "animalic" notes. The leather note is huge and so believable! I did not see the notes ahead of time, but I when I smelled it, I knew it was leather, and I was surprised because I know Auphorie does not use real animal essences. Please try this if you love love love leather but you do NOT love animal cruelty.

Miyako takes me back to a memory of a thrift shop I poked around when I was last at Tahoe. Sniffing from a distance, the perfume has this old, worn-in scent about it, like the scent of clothes with just a bit of mildew, old books, and old leather jackets that might or might not have been worn by a smoker, but they have definitely been worn. If I put my schnozz close to my skin, I really pick up that beautiful, clean, fruity and sweet osmanthus.

Leather is definitely not my favorite note, but oddly I enjoy the (few) excellent botanical interpretations of it much more than the real animalic stuff. Miyako is one of those perfumes that feels like it becomes part of you, just like your favorite leather jacket. This perfume is beautifully done and cruelty-free. Projection is great. Love it!