The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Use Abuse was released in 2015, a fragrance born from an obsession with Mercury's reckless glamour. The brief was simple and uncompromising: build a scent around a tuberose overdose, the kind of floral that walks into a room before you do and refuses to leave quietly. Perfumer Antoine Lie took that brief and ran with it, dosing the bloom so heavily that the whole composition tilts on its axis, creamy and indolic and almost narcotic, the scent of something alive and slightly overheated. The name itself sets the terms. Use Abuse. Wear it like you mean it. Let the flower do what flowers are usually trained not to do, which is speak up, take up space, leave a mark. Not a polite white floral.
What makes the composition distinctive is how Antoine Lie handles the tuberose overdose. The mandarin orange at the top barely softens the blow, adding a bright, almost citrusy flash that sharpens the edges of the flower underneath without diluting it. The heart pairs jasmine sambac and frankincense against white peony, giving the bloom resinous depth and a slightly soapy lift that keeps the indolic heat from collapsing into something cloying.
The evolution
The first thirty minutes are a wall of tuberose, creamy, slightly indolic, almost fleshy, with mandarin orange cutting through just enough to keep it from suffocating. The citrus flashes bright at the opening, a sharp, zesty counterpoint to the dense, almost buttery floral underneath, and for those first minutes the fragrance feels almost edible, like biting into something ripe and overwarm. Within the hour, jasmine sambac and frankincense push the bloom darker and more resinous. The frankincense adds a churchy, smoky edge that makes the white florals feel like they're burning slow, curling into themselves, trading brightness for shadow. As the composition settles, the peony fades and the scent tilts fully into its base. Musk and sandalwood take over, warm and skin-like, with opoponax lending a dark, almost medicinal sweetness that lingers in the background.
Cultural impact
Use Abuse by Jusbox earned its reputation as one of the bolder niche launches of its year, a fragrance that leans hard into a name designed to make you pause. The composition pits a creamy, narcotic tuberose against a bright mandarin orange opening, an unusual pairing that gives the scent its particular voltage, sweetness sharpened by citrus, indolic heat cut by something almost juicy. Wearing it in public tends to draw comments, and the fragrance has found a following among collectors who treat bold white florals as a category worth pursuing in its own right rather than a sidebar to amber and oud.
