Mystic Incense The Merchant of Venice for women and men

I love the historical & luxuriousness of this perfume. The packaging feels like opening a treasure chest (map included lol). The bottle is beautiful lying there in a golden satin bed.

The scent notes are as described but i wouldn't have incense on there twice. Faint incense. Thats certainly not the focal point on this one despite the name. To me, it blossoms into a decadent Christmas pudding, doused with rum or brandy & lit afire. Then, while still steaming, creamed custard is drizzled over it & ready to be devoured. Beautiful & delectable.

It's sillage is weaker than one would expect w everything else being of such high quality, but i think if it was stronger, it may be too much. It's rich & a very lovely, autumn/winter perfume. I'm looking forward to wearing it around Christmas time. So addictive.

It is so faint on me that I can hardly smell it at all. What there is of it is quite lovely. Not too sweet, not too heavy of an incense.
I just wish it were more intense even if the longevity isn't there.

Winner. Lasts all day at skin level. Catholic Mass incense. Reminds me very much of Midnight Mass. I don’t know how these listed notes can possibly smell like myrrh, spikenard and resin, but they do. I don’t get fruit, cacao or caramel at all. Nice though! But same-y to Messe de Minuit and Cardinal. If you have one of those, you don't need this.

This is love at first sniff! It's like a baked mince tart infront of an open fire. Not like BTFP, this is different, I tried most of the above as a comparison and none hit like this does!

Simply a beautiful, warm hug on Christmas day!

10/10

I was hoping to get more cacao and incense, but this is all wood and pencil shavings on my skin.

I was very happy to finally sample Mystic Incense by The Merchant of Venice but I have to admit that I am very disappointed with this.

When I say disappointed I mean specifically with the intensity and overall performance of this scent. The fragrance itself is a beautiful but soft, moderate sweet incense with some subtle caramel and dry fruits. Don’t get any salty facets or any cacao in here. But the way it disappears from my skin after a few hours is just simply disheartening.

It’s such a faint, subdued smell from the opening that it’s obvious that it is not going to last well or project. I think this is more suited to someone who is new to incense, otherwise don’t bother. There are far better, stronger incense fragrances on the market that I would not recommend a whisper of a fragrance like Mystic Incense. For what it is, it costs way too much.

If you’re into a good quality incense scent, try Vanagloria by Laboratorio Olfattivo, for about the same price, or if you have the budget, get Encens Suave or Babycat. All three of these scents are excellently executed, intense and perform superb!

Yes it’s very incense from church with super sweet notes from caramel and dried fruits. Yes the projection and the sillage are moderate to weak. But you know what? I like it like that. Why? Because if this was super projecting, it would be headache inducing. That’s all I got for this one.

This smells like a pencil and a little bit like those incense sticks.
Is a no from me, it is interesting but smelling like a pencil hell no.

Strong incense and musty woody notes are dominating the first few minutes of this fragrance. It is easy to think that one might have oversprayed due to the strength of the notes. However, already after 15 minutes, Mystic Incense starts to weaken and is soon nothing more than a skin scent. Even spraying my clothes does not improve the weak sillage. A few hours after spraying, when burying my nose in my sweater, I perceive a musty scent that reminds me of the smell of a cork from a vintage red wine. Therefore, Mystic Incense is definitely an acquired taste and might be worth trying for incense enthusiasts and lovers of earthy notes.

This smells exactly like midnight Mass: church incense + caramel candy. A few hours later the dry down is pure Coca Cola. I’m saving this for the Christmas season.

blind buy. smells like an old dusty library. i absolutely love it. smokey, intensely woodsy, old books. an ancient coffin. a holy place where incense was burned daily.
not a typical “pretty” perfume by any means. ultra special. worn only for myself.

Great gowns, beautiful gowns….🫠

The reviews sounded just what I was looking for. Incense and sweetness. I have been wanting to test MOV scents- but could not find them. I bought a full size Mystic Inscence 100 ml and it arrived today. The scent itself, I love. But like every eaudeparfume I test these days- there is no staying power or sill-age. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I read similar complaints on fragrance reviews. For me there is no point in buying a scent that fades in minutes. I remember DeciDela and Burberry woman lasting for ages and being asked what I was wearing hours later. This is a huge disappointment to me.

At first I compered this scent to Encens suave (which I love) and wasn’t getting along with this scent. But after I tried it for a couple of times the scent grew on me! The incense note is the same as in encens suave, but this scent has an interesting add of creamy salted caramel that’s stays in the background. A little different combo for me with the salty notes and incense in the beginning, but I got over it :) Now I wear this scent practical everyday and do love it!

Kimse kusura bakmasın hiç bir şeye benzetemedim. Belki diyorım comme des garçons incense koleksiyonu kyoto bilmiyorım. Garip bir koku yani ben sevdim. Elinizde 5 taneden fazla niche parfümünüz varsa alın derim. Sabah uyandığınızda sıkmak istemeyebilirsiniz. Fiyat performans canavarı

I really wanted to enjoy this as the Venetian style glass bottle is quite attractive. It does open with detectable olibanum resin seemingly blended with raisins and prunes, and I found this to be enjoyable, but it grows sweeter and sweeter over time, and I grow more disillusioned. I've concluded that I don't really want an incense fragrance to be also gourmand.

I've decided the Merchant of Venice reminds me of the Aretha Franklin interview where she shows shade after being asked for her thoughts on Taylor Swift: "great gowns, beautiful gowns."

The Merchant of Venice is the "great gowns, beautiful gowns" of modern niche.

Get me to the church on time, I'd say! That's the exact smell of it. Incense and incense...

I am the outlier here. I had extremely high hopes for Mystic Incense after reading stellar reviews on Fragrantica and other websites/forums. Went out on a limb and did a blind-buy, full bottle. For me, this was a foolish & costly mistake.

I love incense forward fragrances but only when they are well-blended with additional notes that smooth out and take the edges off deeply resinous church-y elements. While I adore the fragrance of the straight frankincense & myrrh that Roman Catholic and Orthodox priests burn in a censer at funerals, I don't want to walk around smelling like that. Fans of incense blended fragrances know that blends with sweet notes can lean gourmand; blends with floral notes can smell like cheap bathroom potpourri.

Unfortunately, on my skin Mystic Incense is a complete colossal fail. The opening blast of beautiful, deep smoky and heady incense (frankincense, myrrh) is immediately overpowered by thick, sticky, syrupy, cloyingly sweet caramel. I mean caramel...like carnival popcorn caramel. Like thick, nearly burnt, salty caramel.

I tried wearing this fragrance several times. Each time I applied the perfume, I had to scrub it off because the caramel, vanilla & cocoa notes literally gave me a headache and made me feel nauseous.

The high quality of the ingredients is evident and the offerings by this house seem promising. But there is no way I would consider this a well-balanced, "slightly sweet" incense fragrance. TBH, this fragrance wears straight gourmand with the occasional waft of smoke.

Longevity is high, silage is moderate.

Sadly, Mystic Incense is a definite no-go for me. Now I'm saddled with a full bottle.

Strange slightly vomitous note on first spray, but within moments it is a bowl of dried fruits, mostly raisins in liquor. Within a few minutes, the caramel comes out, and then about forty minutes I get a touch of incense. Smells to me like a church in Europe at Christmas (which is odd, as I have never been to a European church at Christmas time), but I like the ancient feel of this scent. I have no way of knowing, but I imagine this is how it smelled in the fourteenth century. Yet another intriguing offering from The Merchant of Venice.

I like this scent so much! The first time I smelled it, the incense hit me hard (very church-like, I saw a priest waving the incense burner :-)). But on a second smell I liked it so much: the oud, incense and warm, cosy basenotes. Bought a second bottle!! Reminds me of 'Parfum Sacré' de Caron, but less spicy, warmer.
More of a comforting fall-winter scent. Very sensual too, the scent envelops me without being too strong.

10/10

I really wanted to be wowed by Mystic Incense. The presentation is amazing and the notes listed and comparisons seemed promising, but I have to agree with aczwy. On my skin it opens like a warm sugared donut served on a cedar plank. And it mostly stays that way for a couple hours until it fades to sweet nothing. It is very pleasant while it lasts, I will give it that. But I don't really understand how people are getting incense out of this. If you took out the smoke and watered down By the Fireplace until it was about 70% strength, then yeah...this is it. Great bridesmaid or co-pilot fragrance where you want to smell pleasant but not be the center of attention.

ok i realize this is going to sound incredibly demented and almost impossible but the first blast of this reminds me of the smell of herbed pizza dough—complete with the oregano and everything. i can definitely get caramel, salt, and dried fruits if i make my brain parse the notes that way, but in tandem these notes have a slightly savory, bread-y effect. the dry down is a soft woody incense, but not really smoky, almost like the incense is unlit. i personally don't think this is anything special but i wouldn't mind smelling it on someone else!

i like this a lot. very incensey (of the vintage messe de minuit kind), kind of sweet, over lovely dry chocolate-woods. the whole thing not too sweet, not too austere, and strangely transparent. in a way it does for incense what ellena's vetiver tonka does for vetiver. i could wear either for the same mood (something earthy yet warm and a bit sweet, but not too heavy.)

this is the first perfume that i bought mainly for the bottle. i've tried several of this house because i *really* wanted one of those fabulous bottles -- and the juice generally *really* isn't anywhere close to as good as the presentation, alas -- but this was the one that finally stuck.i will wear this. and the bottle makes me happy :-)

Bear with me in this review, as I am quite a laic when it comes to incense in perfumery. /Pun intended./
This seems to be quite a unique creation from this house, as I see many of their other fragrances being compared to some very famous creations from TF, MFK etc.
And for that particular reason, I’ve never been much curious to try them.
Mystic Incense is an exception - I was immediately attracted by the combination of notes, more so because I do like incense in perfumery, but do not own an incense-centric perfume specifically, so I was looking forward to find something that could fill that gap. Plus, those gourmand references really did make it stand out from the rest of the fragrances I considered trying, so I finally decided to purchase a decant.
My first thought when I sprayed it - church, my nearby Christian Orthodox church. I almost felt weird wearing it, due to the connection I made, but the whole experience was still quite intriguing.
Today I am wearing it for the second time, and I am feeling more of the gourmand aspects, but it still remains a very forward churchy-incense fragrance, as others have mentioned.
Another interesting aspect is that it’s not as heavy or thick as one would expect - with 4 sprays on my neck, I do not smell it constantly, but get some random whiffs of it, and I must say that it feels quite smooth in the air.
I definitely like it and appreciate its uniqueness, I love when fragrances “transport” you somewhere and give you this whole olfactory experience.
I’m probably not going to purchase a full bottle, but I’ll be wearing my decant with pleasure, for as long as it lasts.
I hope the Merchant of Venice continues to create such unique blends in the future. I will be most definitely looking forward to explore more of their stuff.
Big “like” from me!

Sultry, libidinous incence :)
The most sensual version of incense I've ever had the pleasure to wear.
I am usually not necessarily a fan of smoky incense and its church connotations in parfum but this is incredible.
Gourmand incense.
As an owner of only a travel spray - I would gladly buy a bottle of this visiting when Venice next time.

Sacredness of places of worship
Liturgical incense
Sacristy
The patron-saint
The churchyard
Stalls in the churchyard
Paper cones filled with krapfen
Cotton candy
Caramel
Caramel
Caramel
A merry-go-round that turns

My head turns in a vortex of perfection and balance never felt before.
Never has caramel been so inviting to me, perfect, subtle, languid, not at all sweetish, not at all sticky. Not loud at all.
Eternal longevity of smoothness, until it disappear after many hours. The absolute best way a scent merges into one with my skin.

4/10

this was a lovely surprise… a gourmand incense! still very woody smoky incense forward, but with a hint of caramel on top and dark chocolates in the base.

Holy Mother of Cocoa, this is delicious. I did NOT expect an incense fragrance to be so gourmand and FRIENDLY and yummy. It really hit me with the cacao first, even though that's not supposedly a top note--and no doubt the caramel was part of that sweet hello that said "You're gonna love me. Just give up now." Well, I did. I have a sampler from Merchant of Venice mostly because I was hoping to fall in love with just one scent enough that I could justify springing for one of their truly spectacular bottle designs. This was not the one that I thought would be a big winner. Now I am afraid that maybe I'll love them all and then be truly in a deep quandary.

So, on first sampling I don't even think the incense is that prominent. The scent is above all, terribly inviting. It's sweet but that sweetness is on the down low, once I got past the initial blast of choco-caramel. This is one I'll be curious to continue to read others' reviews because this appears to cause really different reactions.

Too forward incense for my taste. Mandala by Masque Milano is a much better indirect incense that transforms beautifully.

Cacao and Incense are what I smell something out of this world if you like angel for men the original you will love this one and incense lovers are gonna really enjoy this scent
Longevity is not an issue

Such a beautiful perfume! Even though I’m not the biggest fan of incense, so was not expecting to like it at all. But actually here, it is perfectly balancing out the caramel. Super pretty! Also met with several people and everyone noticed it and it stayed on me for good 6-7 hours.

As a devotee to the Incense perfume genre, I'm sad to tell you that my eyes often glaze over when I read a perfume has incense in the name. Sure I still love it but there's so many and so many that don't really bring a lot that's new to the table. Whether it's 'precious' or 'Noble' or whatever...and in this case Mystic.

What I will say is that MoV Mystic incense doesn't mess around in the slightest. It gives a good account of itself as far as incense is concerned covering the toffee facets of myrrh and the genuinely darker aspects found in Frankincense, usually quite a bright smell to me, if a little churchy and eerie. Olibanum and frankincense come from so many different origins that the materials can be quite different. I actually prefer the cheaper stuff to be honest and this has that roughness and impurity but lodged in the heart of quite a classy, well thought out composition.
As good as it is, I actually think I'd get a little fatigued wearing it. I only tried it on my arm but it was fairly heady, I have a sample and will update this review when I wear it properly. MI is primarily a dry, spicy, woody incense which is both expected but at the same time has more impact that you might think. I feel the conflict and contradiction of my view and I'm desperately trying to be helpful. I'd say incense fans will definitely not be disappointed.
Update 14/02/24
I often say I will update when I wear it 'proper' but rarely do if something doesn't take my fancy enough for me to bother ever revisiting it again. Well this did and I can honestly say that beyond the initial pleasantries and olibanum lean of this perfume, it's not something I pay big bucks for, I think there's better resinous perfumes out there, which are probably in a much less attractive bottle and that's where this brand have collectors by the nuts (or whatever you have) because no matter how mediocre or clone brandy MoV get I don't think I'm alone in searching for one that I can justify buying, simply to own one of those lovely, precious vessels. On the positive side Re: the fragrance, Peculiarly I think the gourmand element, a sort of caramel accord (actually more like fudge to me) works well with the the light and shade of the elemi/olibanum whatever is making up this 'incense' accord.

Absolutely beautiful. You would think there are tons of incense based fragrances in the market but trust me this one has just the right amount of gourmand cocoa that makes it stand out. Performance is also great.

10/10.

Beautiful, Beautiful incense.

I have been looking for a long time for an incense fragrance that would feel evocative but not too austere. I have tried most of them: Olibanum, Larmes du desert, Unum Lavs, Reve d'Ossian, Full Incense - you name it. All of these were too dry, or mixed sweetness with incense in a not fully satisfactory way (like in the case of Reve). The only fragrance that got close to what I wanted is Ambra Aurea in the dry down, but it was still an amber-centric perfume, not an incense-centric one.

Mystic Incense is just perfect. Smells initially balsamic with a sweet hint of caramel, and than slowly moves towards a more woody scent while keeping the sweetness that smooths it.

Only complaint is performance. Like most perfume these days, I feel that this one does not have a great sillage nor longevity. It's decent, but not much more than that performance-wise. Still a beautiful scent.

It's an extraordinary scent. I really love it. I can't wait for cooler weather.
It's like a 2d scent. The incense and wood notes are very obvious and seems to float above the cocoa, fruit and caramel.
It is sweet and a gourmand but the incense is king in this scent. It prevents it getting too sweet.
Some of my fave notes all in one scent and they work so well.
It doesn't develop much but the sweet notes ease off to leave the incense and wood to rule.
Perfectly unisex.
I get good sillage and longevity with this lovely. Roll on autumn.