The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Mood Swings was born from a collaboration. Fugazzi and Mood Scent Bar, a Polish boutique, marking the latter's tenth anniversary in 2023. The brief was loose: build something that captured the feeling of emotional volatility, the way a single day can swing from euphoria to unease and back. Bram Niessink reached for ingredients that could carry that tension. Wild berries for the bright beginning. Saffron and black pepper for the spike in the middle. Iris and vanilla for the soft, complicated center. Oud was always the destination, but treated, here, as a whisper rather than a shout. The result is a fragrance that earns its name by refusing to sit still.
What makes Mood Swings sit apart in the Fugazzi lineup is the powdery heart. Vanilla and iris together create something almost edible, creamy, floral, soft, while the oud in the base keeps it grounded without aggression. Most fruity-spicy fragrances go loud. This one goes warm instead. The oud is used at lower intensity than you might expect, which means it doesn't dominate the drydown. It lingers. It softens. It makes the vanilla feel like skin rather than dessert. That's the unexpected move, taking what could have been another bold Fugazzi statement and making it something you can actually live in, day after day.
The evolution
The opening arrives fast. Saffron and black pepper give an immediate aromatic spark, a brief heat that reads almost medicinal before the berries arrive to sweeten the deal. Within minutes, the berries take over. Wild, juicy, almost tart. The pepper settles. What follows is a warm, sweet phase driven by vanilla and iris, the powdery softness arriving just as the fruit begins to fade. The hand-off is seamless. The drydown is where the oud finally speaks. Not loudly. Cashmere wood wraps the agarwood in something soft and enveloping, while musk and vanilla create a skin-close warmth that doesn't announce itself. Moderate sillage. The kind of fragrance that someone standing beside you will notice before the person across the room. It stays intimate through the final hours, that warm, powdery softness long after the saffron has gone quiet.
Cultural impact
Mood Swings found its audience through the indie fragrance community, the kind of scent that gets recommended in threads asking for something that doesn't smell like everything else. The collaboration with Mood Scent Bar gave it a built-in story from launch, and the sweet-spicy-with-oud formula made it approachable for oud beginners without boring the experienced. It's the kind of fragrance that converts people who didn't think they liked oud.
