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. Dirty Rice (BTSO) spoils an otherwise pure image of milk and basmati rice washed in a bath to release its starch, seeking to reveal its dirty aspect. Its sedative power and white innocence deepens with touches of sandalwood, musk, and other lactic and nutty tones, pulsing forward with bergamot and peony notes at the top. The total scent is expectedly creamy, yet a little animalic, but also aqueous and readily fluid - it is the perfect skin scent.
Between white and animal is ambrette seed (from hibiscus flower), and is the only floral material that produces a true musky aroma. This vegetal material is rich with contradictions - it is both ozonic fresh and deep, with nuances of fruity apple and pear - with unctuousness and sparkle. Parfum d’Empire’s Le Cri utilises this effect to produce a radiant chypre; an architecture of refracted lightbeams. Its floral components, rose and iris, lend refinement and austerity.
Musk Deer (Zoologist) works on a 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. Unspoken Musk by Francesca Bianchi similarly calls upon a tonkin musk accord, buttressed with animalics. But here the animalic works in the service of a striking humanness; skin-soft, hazy, intimate, and seriously sensual. Its magic is iris - blended with balsamic notes - the result is angelic, smudging everything together to become a beautiful wrap of musk, recalling traditional associations of love potions.
