Muse Spiked

Muse Spiked chases Ex Nihilo's 2025 hit Spiky Muse, the niche fruity-floral built around an upcycled strawberry, a generous rose and a distinctive pistachio accord. The dupe opens bright and juicy: strawberry leads, joined by a spiky lift of pink pepper and a slip of bergamot. Where the Ex Nihilo's strawberry was praised as eerily photo-realistic and cool, Muse Spiked renders it sweeter and a touch more candied, edging toward jammy rather than fresh. The heart brings the rose - soft and pretty rather than dark - alongside a creamy pistachio that gives a gourmand-floral nudge, though here the pistachio is rounder and less nutty-precise than the original. The base is the faithful part: akigalawood, ambrofix, cedar and tonka build a smooth, warm, slightly woody-amber drydown that the fruit settles into. It loses some of the airy, crisp sophistication that made the niche version so talked-about, trading it for a more straightforwardly sweet, crowd-pleasing fruity-floral. It is playful, flirtatious and easy to wear across the warmer half of the year, and for budget money it gets you a recognisable slice of the Spiky Muse idea. Longevity is moderate, fading closer to the skin after the first few hours rather than holding the original's all-day projection.