Best Mystra by Aesop Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

A fragrant and floral dedication to emotions and the intricate patterns that shape and run through the structure of our brains. Liquid joy prepared with balsamic labdanum, leathery orange blossom and violet leaf absolutes and a drop of fruity coffee nuance.

Perfumer: Luca Maffei

Strength: 35% extrait de parfum

The origin of some materials in the formula:

pink pepper -> South America

arabica coffee -> South America

cinnamon -> Sri Lanka

galbanum -> Iran

jasmine sambac -> India

violet leaf absolute -> Egypt

orange blossom absolute -> Tunisia

Ylang Ylang -> Madagascar

guaiac -> Paraguay

Vetiver -> Haiti

Labdanum -> Spain

In fleeting top notes Myrtle, fragile as the promises of love, encounters the preciousness of saffron, merging into an indomitable desire for eros.

The luxuriant notes of honey are exalted by the jasmine night breeze that pervades the home of the chaste lovers, among the frescoes, on a thalamus of rose petals.

The mysterious notes of incense and sweet vanilla blend with the oriental contamination of amber and labdanum that fades into the ancient aroma of agar wood, sealing the essence of Castiamanti, expression of rich Pompeii.

This formula is a huge bergamot space heated by a resinous background.

It's a bit like a Greek island in August when the aromas of sweet citruses mix with the green balsamic smell of cypresses and incensy vibes of rockrose Everything gets lifted into the air by the heat reflected from the stony ground. You can almost hear the cicadas in tall dry grass in this perfume.

Ithaka is the first perfume in the Versi trilogy exploring the relationship between poetry and perfumery and how to appreciate it.

It's inspired by the poem Ithaka written by C. P. Cavafy, and first published in 1911.

Perfumer: Camille Chemardin

Genesis, Concept and Creative Design: Stefania Squeglia

***

Ithaka (the poem)

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon — don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon — you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind —
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

***

P. Cavafy, fromC.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems.Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)

‘All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood’

Rainer Maria Rilke

***

A perfumed celebration of saints and superstitions, centred around a fierce fenugreek absolute note lavished with singed pyrazines, sacrificial myrrh and mournful molten honey poured over everything like amber rain.  Meadow blooms, sticky dark resins, pungent balms and ashen clouds of iris swirl like dramatic weather.

Perfumer: Luca Maffei

The EdP option smells drier and more like a damp autumn forest (and has a peculiar mushroom effect). The extrait of Oud Imperial is more ambery (softer) and the smokiness of natural oud is much more pronounced.

Perris are rebalancing each composition for the extrait version. They shift the focus from the top notes to the base raising the amounts of base ingredients to achieve a richer, more opulent and luxurious effect. Pure indulgence in the theme.

Rien ('nothing' in French) is a beautiful animalic chypre, with an aldehydic (rather than classic citrus) opening and seriously naughty leathery vibes provided by the cumin and labdanum duo.  Also check this perfume out if you like frankincense in bold oriental interpretation. 

Perfumer: Antoine Lie

Rien Intense is super concentrated (being an extrait at 33% fragrance) but compared to the original Rien (an EdP), it's more focused on the one theme which is incense.

It's a dark rich and diffusive blend of leathery orris, balsamic labdanum, exploding pepper, dusky oakmoss and sensual cumin.

The name S24 refers to the double S in the Maysson brand logo, paired with 24 to signify the very first perfume the house released in 2024. Bitter/nutty notes of saffron and hazelnut accent the woody-leather theme, softened by amber, benzoin and toffee. A fragrance summoning new beginnings, confidence and determination.

The dogged prospector strikes gold. Upon discovering a payload rich with nutrients, the scarab returns home. Face down, guided by the sun, it propels the tightly-packed dung backwards to a burrow lined with dusky spheres. Underground, it tunnels into the ball to deposit a precious egg. In time, the larva hatches and feeds, until it emerges, fully formed, and instinct drives it down the same dusty trail to repeat the cycle.

Like Egyptians entrusting sacred mummies to tombs for the journey to the next life, a scarab burying its treasure marks the dawn of new life. Zoologist Sacred Scarab captures the mystique of Kyphi incense, a blend of blue lotus, raisins, plums, olibanum, myrrh, and juniper. Once bound with wine and burned in ancient rituals, today this divine scent guides your spirit on a path to discovery and rebirth.

Perfumer: Sultan Pasha

The Nero collection

“Sacreste comes out from the study of another perfume that I have been trying to realize for eight years. Two years ago I received a trial fragrance by Luca Maffei which was characterized by an incense note I really like. We have been working on that note, finishing it and making it sensual until we arrived at the final project, that I completely love.”

Roberto Drago, LO's owner