Okay, fine — the name is ridiculous and the marketing copy is straight out of Theater of the Absurd, but MoslBuddJewChristHinDao (mossul-bud-joo-krist-hin-dow) by German company Elternhaus (and created by Mark Buxton, perfumer extraordinaire) is actually a terrific contemporary perfume and darn near the top of the heap in what I would consider the new minimalist movement in fragrance.
MoslBuddJewChristHinDao introduces itself in a fleeting rush of salt, spice and incense smoke, melting into the skin for a transparent experience. This is not a perfume that smells like you’re wearing a perfume — instead, MoslBuddJewChristHinDao appears to calibrate itself to the individual wearer, resulting in a clean, buttery-smooth scent that clings invisibly to the body, noticable only by those fortunate enough to be allowed access to your personal space.
MoslBuddJewChristHinDao is at its best in the first hour following application, so anyone who might wish to prolong that experience should spray it on his/her clothing as well as the skin. After the subtly sweet tones of the opening have finished making their impact felt, the fragrance pulls in even closer and you’ll swear you’ve been shrink-wrapped in the lightest, whitest of musks.
Elternhaus has received a bit of flak for the high price of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao ($300.00 for 1.5 ounces, last time I checked), especially since the perfume is so subtle as to be almost undetectable by those around you — but as the name implies, it’s meant to be a personal experience between the wearer and the perfume itself, rather than a holy hand grenade of a fragrance with the sole intent of bringing the surrounding world to its knees.
If you just want everyone to know that you pray at the alter of the perfume gods, Thierry Mugler’s Angel (for instance) will signal your devotion far and wide, but if you’re more of the mindset that scent is a religion best practiced with hushed reverence, you’ll immediately grasp the appeal of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao.
Good luck finding any for sale, by the way. Lucky Scent has been backordered for months, and an email to the Elternhaus website has so far gone unanswered.
UPDATE:
One reader commented that my description of MoslBuddJewChristHinDao made it sound like it’s one of those “barely there” perfumes. That is not the impression to take away from this review; rather, think of wearing MoslBuddJewChristHinDao as the equivalent of drinking alone — it’s a relationship strictly between you and the bottle.
