Alien Nation

In space, no one can hear you scream." That was the tagline of the 1979 sci-fi horror movie Alien. Fast-forward to today: Thierry Mugler has just launched his new fragrance Alien, and that line could be tweaked to: "In scent, only a few can launch a dream."

It’s true. According to John Marangos, Thierry Mugler’s marketing and PR director-Asia Pacific, over 400 new fragrances were launched last year, and it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that that equals more than one scent a day.

"I think the industry has reached saturation point," Marangos says. "What you find these days is that fragrances are just run off the production line. Today you can create a fragrance in three months."

Alien, like its wildly successful predecessor, Angel, was over two years in the making, and the resulting scent once again sets Mugler apart from the rest of the pack. While the perfume industry is only now heralding a return to the classics, Mugler has been meticulously crafting his own modern classics since 1992, when he launched Angel. The delicious, chocolate-inflected scent grabbed a legion of fans, who a decade later are still certifiable addicts. These women in the know range from red-carpet bombshells (Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Renee Zellweger) to va-va-voom divas (Jerry Hall, Diana Ross), to political power players (Hillary Clinton).

Another trend that’s currently emerging is bespoke or custom-blended fragrances – limited, very exclusive potions available to the few who can afford them. "We’ve seen that in Hermes’s Hermessences, Armani Privé," notes Marangos. "Even larger companies are producing more exclusive fragrances with a limited number of doors, and that also comes from Mr. Mugler. Because with Angel, the worldwide distribution policy was that it was not in every single door."

One of the three dominant notes in Alien is white amber, an organic, vegetal ingredient culled from golden, honey-colored tree sap. "Amber has that sweetness to it, but it’s not as cloying as vanilla," Marangos explains about why Mugler chose to put it in Alien.

And what’s in that name? Always an agent provocateur, Mugler has carried the moniker Alien with him for years. To him it was provocative and different. Marangos can’t say for certain whether he’s referencing the movie, but one thing’s for sure: it’s not about extraterrestrials or creatures from outer space. "It refers merely to someone from somewhere else" – a foreigner or stranger in a strange land. That’s why he chose model Tina Baltzer as the face of Alien. Baltzer could be European, she could be Asian, but you’d be hard-pressed to guess where she came from (and not in a million years would I have thought that she’s actually half-Korean and half-German).

The fragrance revolves around three notes, or "revelations," as Mugler likes to call it. Marangos presented these revelations to me in a black velvet box with three blue vials inside. The pure essence in each vial was dropped on a scent strip and given to me to sniff. First was the sambac jasmine, a solar floral that is ultra-feminine and exquisite on its own. Then came cashmere and woods, a beautifully refined combination that adds a pronounced yet soft woody element while evoking the snuggly comfort of the most luxurious cashmere sweater. Pulling the two together is the white amber, which is indeed lighter yet equally gourmand and scrumptious as the vanilla note in Angel.

In Alien, the final revelation, you can still detect the three notes, but the blend smells like signature Mugler. Created by veteran nose Dominique Ropion (who brought an old-school, classic approach) and younger nose Laurent Bruyere (who brought a modern, avant-garde twist), it’s not easy to describe and full of contradictions. It smells modern yet familiar at the same time. It’s intoxicating and heady, yet light and ethereal. (Angel is so potent that you’re not supposed to spray it directly on your skin, but I think you could get away with that with Alien.) It’s elegant and sophisticated, yet younger women can wear it and not smell matronly.

"It’s a trail perfume, or parfum de sillage, so when a woman walks by you she leaves a wake, and Angel is the same," says Marangos. "All the great perfumes are parfums de sillage."

Alien’s flacon, an engraved amethyst jewel set with pale-gold claws – or H.R. Giger alien appendages, depending on how you look at it – is to-die-for gorgeous, in my opinion. To be fair, it also brings to mind Mugler’s futuristic fashions, which had their heyday in the Nineties. Working alongside fellow fashion visionaries Azzedine Alaia and Claude Montana, Mugler knew his way around power dressing. Using pointed angles to extend the shoulder and corsets to slim the waist, his designs sculpted the female figure into geometric perfection. If we all wore a Mugler suit with stilettos today, we’d still look as powerful and sexy as Helmut Newton’s dominatrixes did in the Nineties.

But sadly, the French designer decided to hang up his needle and thread for good and is now intent on fleshing out his dreams in rule-breaking fragrances like Alien.

Pinoys used to dousing themselves in cologne can easily wear richer scents like Alien without overpowering everyone around them. The secret is in the application. Spray the perfume in front of you, and (with eyes closed) walk through the mist, or spray twice from a distance, which should suffice.

"People love their fragrances to last, but the mistake is to also want to smell it on themselves," says Marangos. "They spray so much on so they can smell it, and in the end, it’s overkill."

A good way to achieve subtle yet lasting fragrance is to layer it, which you can do with Alien Prodigy Showers and Prodigy Body Cream. The shower gel comes in a similarly beautiful plastic bottle and turns your bath into a decadent-smelling boudoir. After bathing, your skin is so lightly scented that it’s more an aura than a scent. Moisturizing with the rich white body cream helps seal in that aura; top off with two spritzes of the perfume and you’ll leave a memorable trail that should last a full eight hours.

Another secret to maximizing your fragrance is knowing where to apply it. Forget what your mother taught you: she was right about pulse points but wrong about their location. You shouldn’t apply fragrance on your neck or behind your ears. "You’ve got glands there," explains Marangos. A pulse point is simply where you have heat. For men, surprisingly, it’s the chest, upper arms and back. For women, it’s the wrists, the crooks of the elbow, behind the knees, and on the ankles.

"A French perfumer told me that," relates Marangos. "It’s a beautiful place to wear fragrance. But someone else asked, ‘Who would smell a woman’s ankles?’ The Frenchman said, ‘No, no, no, not to smell the ankle but to kiss it.’"

* * *

Alien comes in a 60 ml. refillable eau de parfum spray, 30 ml. refillable and non-refillable sprays, Prodigy Shower Gel and Prodigy Body Cream. Available at Thierry Mugler counters in Rustan’s Department Stores.