Angel Nova

Mugler's Angel Nova reinvented the house's classic gourmand as something lighter and fruitier, opening on juicy raspberry and lychee before settling into a jammy, modern rose built with an unusually complex double-extraction technique, finished with a woody akigalawood-benzoin base that keeps Angel Nova going for eight to ten hours. Copycat's Angel Nova nails the entry point - the raspberry-lychee burst is bright, sweet, and immediately recognisable as coming from the same family - and the rose that follows is soft and fruity rather than old-fashioned, which is the right idea even if it lacks the original's technical depth. The base is where the gap shows most: the benzoin-woody finish here is thinner and less resinous than Angel Nova's signature akigalawood, and the whole composition loses its fruity-floral balance and drifts into a generic sweet-woody muskiness within a few hours, rather than the layered, slow-building trail the original is known for. It's a fun, inexpensive way to try the playful raspberry-rose style, just don't expect it to last through a full evening the way the real thing does.