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~$290(3.4oz)
Sold only through the brand's own boutiques.
Key notes
PearBergamotMandarin orangeGingerOrange blossom
A luminous fruity-musk built on juicy pear and ginger over a clean, modern woody base — a bright, easy unisex that reads expensive without trying.
Key notes
PearCalabrian bergamotMandarin orangeGingerOrange blossom
Velixir built Icarus as a near note-for-note tribute to Blue Talisman — the same pear-and-ginger sparkle drying down to that Ambrofix musk, at a fraction of the niche price. Community pick
The bottom line
Buy the dupe
The two note lists line up closely, and the price gap does the rest.
Note match
100%
carries 10 of the original's 10 notes
Price difference
81% less
81% less by the ounce — $85 against $16
How it wears
Season
Year-round
Strength
Long-lasting
Best for
Everyday, work, date night
Neither heat nor cold throws it off — clean musk and citrus keep it even through the year. One of the more versatile picks here: daily wear, work, and an evening all sit inside its range.
The analysis
Buy the dupe. Velixir Icarus publishes all 10 of Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman's notes — pear, bergamot and mandarin orange among them. Matching Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman on paper is free; matching it on skin is not. $54 against $290: 19% of Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman's price.
From a fragrance specialist
The fragrance that smells most like Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman is Velixir Icarus — it copies the note list material for material, down to the Ambrofix and Georgywood.
Most dupes work by approximation: find something that smells close and hope you don't notice the seams. This one doesn't bother. Georgywood and Ambrofix aren't notes in the poetic sense — they're specific manufactured materials, and any house can buy them. When a dupe lists them by name instead of dancing around them, it's building from the same parts as the original, which is why this is one of the closest note lists on the site. What money still buys you is concentration and the quality of the naturals wrapped around that skeleton — the pear and ginger sparkle up top is where cheaper versions usually thin out first — plus the bottle and the boutique. If it's the smell you're after, this gets you most of the way there. If it's the object, no dupe has ever fixed that.
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Common questions
Velixir Icarus is the closest affordable match we've found for Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman. It runs about $54 instead of roughly $290 — about 81% less.
Both share Pear, Bergamot, Mandarin orange and Ginger — 10 notes in total, one of the deeper overlaps on this site.
Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman is known for strong, long-lasting performance, and Velixir Icarus holds up well for a budget pick — expect most of a day's wear, with a light re-spray if you want it to carry into the evening.
Velixir Icarus costs around $54 versus roughly $290 for Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman — about 81% less.
The published note lists for Velixir Icarus and Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman match, which is as close as paper gets. Two bottles built from the same list can still wear differently, so trust your nose over any list — including ours.
Take the shortlist with you
125 pairings on this site. These are the ones I'd spend my own money on — and the one-line reason why, from someone who smells these for a living.
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