If musks range from the pure and white to the animal, Silver Musk from Nasomatto squarely exists on the side of white … or silver. There is no mistaking its muskiness, laminating clean, floral, dry wood impressions together. Indeed, white musk fragrances like this become an exercise in layering and overdosing. If it were a painting, it scumbles and smudges its material into one. Its dominant musk is a huge and powerful macrocyclic molecule known as habanolide, which offers both clean aromatic elegance and heft, as its creamy-powdery muskiness moves into woodiness. Its longevity is indubitable. This is reinforced with an equally heavy dose of ethylene brassylate, which adds complexity along floral, woody, and vanillic lines. The final substantive component of this musky cocktail is ambrettolide, which shades the composition with an overall fruitiness that has a slightly unctuous feel, reminiscent of ambrette. These notes work on the skin, spreading and saturating with a veneer that is glossy, effervescent, and even metallic. Silver Musk iterates this quality with touches of sparkly citrus up top, the natural sheen of lemon and bergamot oil miraculously apparent yet invisible, coated in the sheer transparent freshness of blossomy and ozonic hedione, lilial, helional - creating an atmosphere gorgeously redolent of the sweet and electrical air during a thunderstorm.
The Musc from Essential Parfums demonstrates that white musk notes can be cleverly adjusted according to different creative intentions. Whilst Silver Musk shines, The Musk is a comforting mute tone. The Musc seeks and achieves roundedness and ambiance – a singularly coherent harmony. Musk notes are touched up with the natural and matte sensation of ginger, lavender, beeswax, and sandalwood. It is supremely textural. It employs two beautiful contemporary musk molecules, fruity Serenolide and milky Nirvanolide, notable for their evocative and tell-all names. Further, lean into the lactonic facets of musk with Milky Musk / 39 by Parle Moi de Parfum, which extracts creaminess from sandalwood and fig, all of this fortified with a requisite dash of musk. The brilliance of this fragrance lies in its use of ambrette seed, a ‘vegetal’ musk that has deeply fruity resonances, unctuous like the finest fruitiest olive oil. It crosses the aroma of pome fruits – like apple, pear, and quince, but also the soft liquid fire of eaux de vie. In a word, warm coddled musks are poured over precious material. Its sensation is gregarious yet steady.
Heeley’s Blanc Poudre shares with these fragrances a passion for white musks, uniquely worked with a sizzling effervescent top. It is an engulfing rush, with a tanginess that rubs and grazes, shines and diffuses like a fine powder dispersed in the atmosphere. Within this cloud of rice powder, cotton flower, and musk, Heeley incorporates nuances of animalic musk, moss, and even tones of violet and iris – all of this working around the soft and saturated warmth of vanilla, which infuses a solar quality to the fragrance, but also a suggestiveness. This gentleness displays a surprising animalic quality in the base, a dark contrast that hides behind a smile, as an apparent air of naked innocence is nuanced by an underlying warmth and sensuality.
Musk Deer (Zoologist) similarly works on this fine line, exceeding the threshold of sensuality with its generous and triumphant use of animalic musks. It beguilingly voyages through a wilderness of spices, patchouli, florals, and oud, adding dimension and contrast in bountiful layers. Its muskiness is immediate and sustained throughout wear. Tonkin Deer musk is nowadays recreated synthetically with muscone: it is soft and sweet with a defining animalic edge; it is surprisingly not overtly ‘animal’, but musky. Its ferocity and animality is the result of blending, which in this case relies on the polyphonic growls of oud, ambrette, cedar, patchouli, and even jasmine sambac. We wouldn’t want to end this set without something truly ferocious, and thus truly animalic, and Hyrax from Zoologist fits the bill – and then exceeds it. This is challenging albeit beautiful perfumery – it respects the nature of the beast, offering a combo of hyraceum, castoreum, and civet – animalic musk ingredients that sear and radiate in a leathery, smoky, and humid atmosphere. Hyrax is tarry, peppery, and made unctuous with Turkish rose, saffron, and hyacinth oils. It is uncompromising and intense. It is warm flesh and hide, with a glow unique to animalic fragrances and impossible to replicate otherwise.
