Will it be meek passion you feel for this scent, or lust at first sight?

Listed notes

Bergamot, apple, banana, cashmere woods, powdery notes, lemon, patchouli, pineapple, vetiver, vanilla.

The brand

M.INT are a new brand to us at The Sniff, and Meek Passion makes a bold start to our experience of their fragrances, which is no bad thing at all. M.INT themselves are the product of a husband/wife team and the brand represents the culmination of many years’ work and love of fragrance. Their website tells enigmatically little about them apart from the usual marketing spiel of triggering emotions, high quality materials etc etc.

We felt that if you liked this scent you should also check out Bat by Zoologist, or Quality of Flesh by Homo Elegans.

Top notes

At The Sniff, we love it when a perfume has the temerity to surprise us and the top notes of Meek Passion by M.INT are a real fruit-bowl to the head of surprise. Spray this scent and you are engulfed by ripe fruits: apple, banana, pineapple. They tumble around you spilling their scents, first the squishiness of the banana which feels so ripe it is about to burst forth from its skin, then the pineapple which is juicy and lush, finally the apple, tart and tangy. This fruity explosion doesn’t hang around though, lasting mere moments before it gives way to the next phase of the scent.

The start of Meek Passion would have you believe that this perfume is going to be a cheerful scent in the realms of fruity or even fruity floral, but if you believed that you would be mislead. A much darker, less wholesome and more challenging heart awaits.

Heart notes

Meek Passion feels like a perfume that has two halves: the cheerful, sunny, fruity start, and then this seedy, sordid and dirty half which makes up the rest of the wear. The two elements throw each other into sharp relief, and this really is a scent which will surprise you with its twists and turns.

The early shift in the scent is a bit like watching a sped up video of fruit rotting, the way that it bloats before collapsing into pulp and returning to the earth. That’s what the experience of wearing Meek Passion feels like, but instead of the fruits returning to soil, clove and cinnamon take their place. These dirty, gritty spices add a whole new dimension to the fragrance, it becomes a lot darker, a lot moodier and very unwholesome. The combination of clove and woods evokes the sense of cigarette smoke staining fingers. It’s up-close-and-personal, a little sordid somehow. We wouldn’t be surprised if there is even some indolic jasmine in there, it has echoes of that sort of quality.

There’s an intimacy about the fragrance, an un-washed body after a night out drinking and smoking type vibe to it. Whilst the fruits might have lived in the day, the latter half of the scent definitely takes place after dark.

Base notes

The base and the heart are continuations of each other, as similar to each other as the top notes were different. The smoky, sweaty, oily spices stick to the skin and feel sinuous and macabre, a little threatening, a little dangerous, a little exciting. The cigarette smoke vibe smooths a little and the earthy vetiver turns the acrid smoke into loam instead. The perfume feels as if it settles silent about you in the small hours before dawn, in the moments after the party ends and before you have to walk home and collapse into your own bed. Despite the skanky, dirty vibe to the scent there is also a stillness, a flatness to the base which adds to the composition rather than detracting from it. It’s almost like the memory of a drunken night out, fleeting images captured in photographic moments rather than three-dimensional moving pictures.

Meek Passion is a scent for those who like their fragrances on the darker, more impolite and dirtier end of the spectrum. It evokes booze and sweat and smoke on the skin in its wear. The way the fragrance begins though is cheerful and totally unexpected making for an interesting juxtaposition. This is a bold and confident scent which makes for an interesting introduction to the brand. It’s definitely left us wanting to know more…

The other stuff

The longevity of Meek Passion is good. It lasted well into the evening following a morning’s application.

Although we advocate any person of any gender wearing whatever scent they like, this felt to us as if it leans more towards the stereotypically masculine end of the spectrum. The oily, smoky vibe made us feel that way about it.

The sillage, or projection, of this scent was moderate to good. When we tested it it seemed to hang around at about handshake distance or just less.

We would recommend that you wear Meek Passion at night. To our minds it’s definitely a ‘going-out’ fragrance. We didn’t think it would matter particularly if it was worn at night in Summer or Winter, it seems as if it would suit both equally, just as long as it’s properly dark.

M.INT’s bottles are very beautiful – if presentation sways you then prepare to be seduced because these are utterly gorgeous and unique.

Buy it

Meek Passion is available from Bloom Perfumery London where it is priced at £190 for 70ml EdP. Bloom very kindly supplied us with a sample of this scent gratis, but no strings were attached and there was no requirement for us to review it. We chose to do so because we thought it was an interesting scent.

You can also buy Meek Passion from the M.INT web boutique.