Musk

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Sweaty, indolic, faecal, animalic, catty, urinous, warm, glowing, barnyard.. 

All are terms used to describe 'musk' in perfume, and with the exception of 'glowing' you'd be forgiven for wondering why anyone would want to spray such essences on their skin in the form of perfume.

But as Duchamp's Urinal attests, it's all about context!

I'm neither a perfumer nor a chemist, so I'm not going to go into any great detail about the components of musk and its myriad manifestations in perfume. (for those of you with a deeper interest in perfume chemistry though, I highly recommend this 3-part series from the the perfume blog Perfume Shrine: Musk -  Series 1  Series 2  Series 3 )

Suffice to say, musk in perfume can be natural or synthetic, but nowadays for ethical and economic reasons it's more often synthetic. Historically, musk pertained to the substance taken from the anal pods of the musk deer, or glands from the civet cat which produce a 'fecal' note, also castoreum from beavers which produced a 'urinous' note, reminiscent of leather

The question is, why on earth would anyone want to smell like cat pee or deer's anus? The simple answer is, partly, longevity. Nature in its wisdom has ensured that smells pertaining to our reproductive organs will be very lasting, also pervasive.

If you add musk to a fragrance, it works as a kind of fixative, and without getting too detailed here, the theory is that it's basically to do with the shape or size of molecules, with musk being one of the more weighty, therefore the slowest to 'take-off' from the skin (lemon would be one of the lightest). This current theory (disputed by some scientists, most notably Luca Turin) is that the shape of these molecules interacts with our nose membranes.

But musk is not just about longevity. In nature many of the smells we love the most -  such as woodsmoke, leather, jasmine, orange blossom, honey fresh from the comb - also contain aroma chemicals reminiscent of our own natural secretions. Jasmine, for example, contains chemicals known as 'indoles' which in isolation smell somewhat camphorous, like mothballs, or even bad breathe, indoles are also present in faeces. Add these to the complex aroma that makes up the scent of jasmine and this facet enhances the flower's heady aroma - an excellent fly and bee attractor too, which is of course why flowers smell. This indolic quality is a feature of many white floral perfumes, which can be categorised as 'clean' white florals, 'animalic' and everything in between

It must be said that these smells are dividers - some people loathe the smell of jasmine and tuberose, others find woodsmoke in perfume too acrid. I myself struggle with tuberose but love both jasmine and woodsmoke. But, perfumers can really 'ramp up', or decrease certain musk smells such as 'urinous' castoreum, or 'fecal' indoles and civet, and when they ramp them up, I often find the results pretty repellent, while others don't even begin to detect these notes. This is because most of us are anosmic to certain musks, they're a bit similar to ultra violet rays, with some being on the edge of our perception.

Its probably a part-inherited trait since my mum and sister are also hyper sensitive to these factors. Appreciation of perfumery means I've developed a tolerance for some of the extremes though (much in the same way as people develop an acquired taste for blue cheese, for example).

Perfumers can isolate, dilute or enhance these effects. In contemporary, mainstream perfumes these 'skanky' factors (as they're known by perfume appreciators and collectors) are often downplayed. These days most people simply want to smell clean and fresh, especially while at work, which makes sense, but only up to a point.

The problem with these 'clean' perfumes is that they often lack complexity and depth - in short, they're boring. The human nose revels in complex aromas (as mentioned, woodsmoke and so on). And this is where musk can play a role in lending complex factors to perfume, reminiscent of, for example fresh sweat

I'll list a small and by no means comprehensive list of musky perfume examples below. But it's worth knowing that synthetic musks play the role of fixative in a variety of ways - some can simply smell clean, yet long lasting. Most washing powders contain synthetic musk because it retains scent despite soap suds normally breaking smells down. So musk can be dirty or clean depending on the effect desired. (it's ecologically fairly unsound for washing powders to contain so much synthetic musk, much more than perfume incidentally)

Lastly, an expensive yet natural and ethical source of musk that's still used in high-end perfumes, is ambergris. This is a by-product of the Sperm Wale's digestive system (I can't remember from which end to be honest!) and when it's first produced it's a foul smelling, tarry looking substance, but miraculously after a year or more floating in the sea it begins to smell lovely - a warm salty/sweet scent that's very distinctive with powerful fixative and 'projecting'  or pervasive qualities which make it ideal for perfume.

Urinous/Fecal
Sounds grim yes? But catty and fecal elements of musk are integral to the iconic perfume Joy, by Patou. This is to enhance the fact that's it's an abundantly rich floral bouquet. I personally can immediately smell a urinous note in this thanks most likely to castoreum (a note which I perceive as either 'fur-pants' or 'men's urinal' - depending on how its handled) and civet (some people think this smells fecal, but to me it's sharply urinous, others detect the fecal note more clearly, and still others smell none of that - just a lovely floral smell! Experience tells me that this 'pissy' or 'urinous' note will fade to produce a warmth that enhances the glowing and radiant floral qualities of Joy. Though it's still a perfume I associate with a woman who wears a long fur coat and files her red nails into talons -very much in a 'grande dame' style. I've read though, that it's current formulation has nothing on the vintage (a most enjoyable review at the Perfumed Dandy's blog can be read here )

Another note which produces a urinous or 'cat-pee' effect is blackcurrant bud - evident in Frederic Malle's Portrait of a Lady where it lends a ruby-red acidic lushness to the powerful rose/patchouli blend, and Annick Goutal's Ninfeo Mio where it combines with green/woody/citrus notes for an underneath-the-bushes effect wonderfully reminiscent of a wild garden in the height of summer.

Chanel's elegant classic Cuir de Russie also has notes of castoreum which, alongside smoky birch tar and a floral bouquet, enhance the idea of animalic yet elegant leather.

Sweaty/Indolic

Penhaligon's Amaranthine is a milky, green-toned beach floral to some noses, but to some people (including me) it's strongly reminiscent of the scent of stale sweat that you can't shift from a nylon top, and groin sweat, more specifically groin sweat from a man with worrying alcohol issues on a salad-free diet. This is followed up in dry-down with a surprise ammonia note, suggestive of advanced kidney failure. Needless to say, I struggle to think up an occasion at which I might wear this! It smells like the tragic and regrettable morning aftermath of a seriously dissipated night out. Others have described it as 'the scent of a woman's inner thigh'. and 'a corrupt floral'. I can appreciate that the musky qualities have been very deliberately ramped up by 'nose' Bertrand Duchaufour (something of a 'rock star' in the perfume world, many of whose other perfumes I find truly gorgeous - Seville a L'aube, Havana Vanille). Amaranthine has very classic female summer perfume qualities (milky white tropical florals, green notes, banana leaf) but Duchaufour deliberately made it very naughty because he wanted to challenge Penhaligon's prissy Victorian image, and as far as I'm concerned he's out-done himself here with this complex cocktail of musks! As mentioned, due to the fact many people are anosmic to the effects of certain musks, a lot of people don't 'get' any of this, just the florals...

Diorella by Dior, now this is my kind of indolic jasmine! To me this is more reminiscent of fresh sweat, and the fact that its lovely jasmine is harmonised with juicy (not sharp) lemon, ripe melon, and green, smoky vetiver makes it a dream-like summer picnic of a perfume. To spray this on is to be transported to the height of summer. It was love at first sniff for me - on the healthy side of sweaty, with a slightly unisex and very relaxed feel. A more lady-like and refined idea of this summer's day paradise can be experienced in  Le Parfum de Therese (my earlier review here).

A more subtle take on indolic white florals is Songes by Annick Goutal. Featuring jasmine, ylang and a small amount of tuberose, Songes suggests a humid, tropical holiday, the indolic quality is subtle, adding a soft, moist feel, it's also given a little depth with the addition of resins which suggest beeswax, and enhance the lovely summery quality

Salty
The previously mentioned ambergris, sourced from the Sperm Whale, is very evident in Andy Tauer's Une Rose de Kandahar. While this perfume features a very high quality Afghanistan rose, to me its most striking feature is the note of ambergris which lends this a tingling marine salty haze - very powerful and long-lasting. A more dilute version can be found in the beautiful Iris de Nuit by James Heeley - (a review can be read here towards the end of the post) paired with green notes and a delicate, cool violet, ambergris lends a subtly warm tone to this ethereal perfume.

Clean haze
The clean-haze effect is most often thanks to 'White Musk' - a sweet synthetic musk, best evidenced of course in the Body Shop's White Musk, also in J-Lo's Glow a pleasantly soapy clean floral scent. 'Cashmeran' another clean-scented musk is used to strong effect in Frederic Malle's  Dans tes Bras. Also, slightly lighter, in Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist where it lends a slightly acidic haze to the perfume. Some people are completely anosmic to this effect, while others find it strangely irritating. I can handle it in Cashmere Mist, but in Dans tes Bras it's like nails on a chalkboard for me -reminds me of the smell of old, oxidised metal coins.

Barnyard
Barnyard pertains to horsey, hay-like verging on manure notes, sometimes with a hint of castoreum. One of the best examples of this can be found in Miller Harris's L'Air de Rien. My earlier review here ). The synthetic musk used in this perfume is known as 'black musk' - darker and heavier in tone. (Though hay-like notes often refer to a perfume ingredient called 'coumarin' - best evidenced in Serge Luten's cosy, comforting Chergui). L'Air de Rien's horsiness is also due to labdanum, a type of resin which can smell hair-like

L'Air de Rien, by Miller Harris is a bit 'hippy' or 'horse stable' for some people, but as with all perfumes, and especially musks, it depends how it reacts with your skin. The horsey notes and lightly mildewed book smell of L'Air de Rien is oddly, but somehow perfectly, paired with sweet incense, vanilla and neroli. Some people say there's no hard evidence to prove that perfumes smell different on different people, but my answer to this is; Do people smell different from one another? I rest my case.

Bal a Versailles, by Jean Desprez
This has orange blossom and labdanum, in common with L'Air de Rien, but the feel is far more classic and formal. Despite its reputation as a musk bomb, Bal a Versailles has a classic suede-glove texture and lovely soft warmth with a salty powdered quality. The musky barnyard quality is slightly leathery, with castoreum adding a cat fur note alongside indolic notes, which will appeal to some but definitely not those who seek soapy freshness in a perfume!  In reformulation it's perhaps less floral and I can imagine it worn by men, in fact it reminds me a little of Penhaligon's Hamam Bouquet - a retro dandified perfume that suggests a well-dressed gentleman of yesteryear

I've covered a few examples here, but two more perfumes famous for containing a veritable cocktail of musks are Serge Luten's Muscs Koublai Khan - an animalic sweat-fest with a masculine feel, which for some smells warm and cosy, yet for others is repugnant. Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d'Orange, is the ultimate skank-bomb, with notes of sweat, urine, blood and semen. I'm not aware of anyone who actually wears this, but perfume's not always about prettiness and adornment, maybe it's simply that experimental perfumers sometimes want to show off what they know about chemistry...

Happy sniffing!

All images © Rose Strang




(Information about musk in this article discovered at Perfumeshrine.com , Also in 'The Secret of Scent', by Luca Turin 2006. and 'Perfume, The Guide', by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, 2008)

L'Air de Rien. Incense, old books and goat hair

L’Air de Rien by Miller Harris.

Which aromas do you find comforting? For many people vanilla seems to be the ultimate in comfort scent – reminding us as it does of home cooking and nurture, or maybe childhood memories of birthday-cake and feeling loved. Or how about the grounded smells of nature; hay-barns, wheat fields, forest floor, cow pats..?! Most of us find a walk in the country relaxing, and speaking for myself I don’t mind a whiff of cow-pat carried on a spring breeze, preferable by far to the smell of oven cleaner, for example.

It’s entirely subjective of course, although the smells mentioned above with the possible exception of cow pat, would probably win the most votes. There are hundreds of vanilla gourmand oriented perfumes out there, yet very few perfumes explore these ideas with great imagination – most perfumes intended as comfort scents are quite literal and non abstract.

Shalimar by Guerlain is one of the exceptions - playing on a richly authentic vanilla comfort-scent; darkening it with leather/birch tar and contrasting it with intense bergamot lime.  Most gourmands are not abstract enough to keep our interest for very long – there aren’t any surprises or gaps to fill with imagination, and perfumers seem to agree that a certain abstract quality is required to turn a perfume into a work of art, as opposed to a simplistic copy or capture of nature. ‘Show don’t tell’ is the literary equivalent - similarly easier said than done.

When I first sniffed L’Air de Rien by Miller Harris, I knew within seconds that I loved it and that I’d buy it as soon as possible. But it’s taken me a full year to get my senses (and subsequently my brain) around this perfume; it’s not necessarily an easy perfume to love and wear!

Its ingredients are listed as oakmoss, orange blossom, incense, labdanum (resin from rock-rose), vanilla, patchouli and musk, among other things. Because of associations, one person’s grounded patchouli is another’s unwashed hippy, or pair of mouldy socks, but in L’Air de Rien it doesn’t seem to tip into the heavy, cloying hippy aspects of patchouli, and that’s all down to facets the perfumer detracts, or contrasts with other notes. 

To my nose L’Air de Rien is old books (a sweet leather/mildew accord), the scent of hair lending an intimate feel,  Nag Champa incense, goats, horse stables and cup cakes. To me it just doesn't get any more comforting, but it’s also intriguing and nostalgic. I enjoy the fact it sometimes challenges me, I can’t always wear this perfume.

On first spray it sometimes reminds me of horse manure (I've always loved horses and worked in stables as a girl so this isn’t entirely unpleasant!). The goaty note is comforting; I learned to milk goats while on holiday as a girl and I've loved goat's milk products ever since. I’ve learned to let L'Air de Rien dry down for at least half an hour, by which time the incense-sweet ash note appears and the sweaty horse has faded to something more akin to the scent of pillows after someone has slept on them.

To someone unaccustomed to analysing perfume or wearing something a bit odd (for example outside of the more popular clean floral or fruity/sweet gourmand perfumes) these descriptions might sound a bit far-fetched. But recounting the story behind the making of this perfume is a reminder that the strangest concepts can be translated to perfume – into an aura of something lived, experienced and felt, with enormous power to evoke emotion.

The perfumer Lynn Harris (of Miller Harris Perfumes) collaborated with Jane Birkin on L’Air de Rien. (Jane Birkin of Serge Gainsborough ‘Je Taime’ fame). In her own words, Jane wanted; ‘the smell of an old library, the scent of my father’s

jacket and my baby brother’s hair’. She wasn’t at all sure it was even possible to create a perfume she liked – ‘I don’t even like perfume, there aren’t any I want to wear’. L’Air de Rien translates literally as ‘Air of Nothing’, but a more accurate translation might be ‘Like nothing else – un-captured’. It’s a perfume that’s completely unique, which doesn't attempt any reference to the usual familiar anchors and that’s why, to me this has a touch of genius, as much because of its experimental feel and its success in capturing what it set out to, as the labour of love revealed by the story of its inspiration and making.

L'Air de Rien doesn't radiate too much on my skin and I'm reliably informed by my sister that it has a ‘sherbet-like, almost pink smell’. My mum exclaimed on first smelling it - ‘Now, don’t get rid of this one’ (she knows I buy and swap or sell all the time!).So its actual sillage is fairly close-to-skin, and to be honest once it’s into dry-down it’s probably only me who detects the barnyard horse-sweat note, so don’t be put off - though the first sniff might be challenging.

You can probably find a sample for less than £8 on Ebay (or on the websites at the top of this blog on the right) and I would say it’s one that’s best to try before buying, but whether you fall for it or not, if you have a curious nose it does guarantee a fascinating olfactory journey!

(Spot the cat!)

All photos© Rose Strang