We are back after a week off.. Things are slowly mending behind the scenes as we try this cologne community classic.

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If we had unlimited money... We would be buying these right now!!

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Another dose of Orto Parisi.. On this episode, Myke and Steve try a polarizing scent that make some reach for their billfolds and others reach for a barf bag. 

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Many have said this would be Myke's most hated fragrance... We are willing to find out!

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A few years ago, Myke tried Le Labo's Tonka 25 and hated it more than anything he had previously smelled... Fast forward to the Fragrance Banter Podcast, and he listed it as his most disappointed fragrance in a previous episode.. Now, he's giving it another smell. What is he going to think?

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What is the meaning of life?

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Do we love this so much that we hate it?

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Myke and Steve didn’t plan on trouble that afternoon, but trouble often comes disguised in glass bottles. The YSL counter gleamed under the fluorescent buzz, a temple of temptation wrapped in black lacquer. The sales associate, eyes sharp as razors, sprayed a cold mist of MYSLF L’Absolu onto a strip of paper. The scent rose like smoke from a ritual fire—bitter citrus, damp woods, something almost metallic. Myke’s nose twitched; Steve smirked like a man about to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. They leaned in, inhaling at the same time, and for a moment, it felt less like shopping and more like gambling with fate.

The fragrance shifted—first warm, then sour, then unsettlingly sweet. Myke whispered, “It smells like ambition gone wrong,” and Steve chuckled, though his laugh sounded nervous, like it might shatter under its own weight. Around them, shoppers moved as if unaware of the private interrogation happening between two friends and a bottle of scent. Was it genius or a chemical accident? Was it desire in liquid form, or the perfume of regret? They didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. The strip hovered between them, pulsing with possibility, while both men stood frozen in suspense, silently calculating whether to love it, hate it, or fear what would happen if they chose wrong.

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The air was thick with anticipation as Myke and Steve sat across from each other, the dim glow of the streetlight creeping through the window like an unwelcome guest. They leaned in, their voices low, almost conspiratorial. "You ever tried this one?" Myke asked, a sinister smirk curling at his lips. Steve's face contorted, the memory of it almost physically painful. "How could I forget? It was supposed to smell like an exotic garden, but instead... it was like inhaling a vacuum bag full of regret and missed opportunities." The room seemed to tighten around them as they both sat in a moment of silence, the weight of their shared betrayal hanging between them. How could something that promised so much be so... soul-crushingly wrong? The cruelty of it burned just as brightly now as it did that first disastrous spray.

The conversation twisted into darker territory as they ventured into another bottle, this is a fragrance that had promised sophistication but delivered only the scent of stale air and bad decisions. "I thought it would be like walking through a Parisian market, Steve," Myke continued, his voice dripping with mockery. "Instead, it was like someone bottled up the smell of expired confidence and unfulfilled dreams." Steve laughed, but it was hollow, the humor too dark to be anything but tragic. The laughter quickly died, replaced by the unspoken question: What’s the point of chasing something so fleeting if all it ever does is disappoint? Their eyes met—two men broken by the same unholy scent—and for a moment, it felt like they were trapped in a perfume bottle themselves, slowly suffocating under the weight of their own crushed expectations.

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