Musk Scents

  Musk Scents, Revisited

 

Remember musk? If you remember the Seventies and Eighties (yes, I’m dating myself here), then you remember musk scents. If you don’t remember these decades, I’m guessing you teened it through the Backstreet Boys instead of Duran, Duran, right? Anyway, for me, junior high and high school perfumes, and the girls who wore them, fell into two categories: Bonne Bell Skin Musk and Love’s Baby Soft. Personally, although I could hardly pass for the earthy type, (Shocking, I know), I was a Musk. I never got the whole Baby Soft thing – maybe because it smelled neither baby-like nor soft. Quite the opposite – it was so cloying that it gave me my first of many fragrance-induced migraines. Ugh. Plus, weren’t we all trying to look older in our clogs and feathered hair and Lip Smackers, anyway? Who wanted to look juvenile, pink and babyish? As if. Not Sadie Hawkins dance worthy in the least.

 

So, for years, I made musk my signature, eventually moving on from Ms. Bell to the sluttier Jovan Wild Musk Oil and then the hippie-chic Kiehls Original Musk Oil. Then, inexplicably, I turned my back on musk completely. Maybe I was brainwashed by the ultra-extroverted Giorgio Beverly Hills or the swishy L’Air du Temps or the polarizing Dior Poison (sinus-infection-in-a-bottle) or the preppy-posh Lauren by Ralph Lauren or any of the other blockbuster scents of the mid-80’s. (I secretly bought a bottle of the extremely inappropriate Calvin Klein Obsession when it first came out but never dared to wear it beyond my shag-carpeted bedroom.)

 

Anyway, my point -- and I do have one -- is that I forgot what an all-out sensory perfection a great musk fragrance can be. I wrote musk off as pedestrian, often heavy-handed, an overtly-animalistic fragrance note that screamed amateur alchemy to me. That is, until I received a tiny sample bottle of Serge Lutens Clair de Musc at a Neiman Marcus beauty event. Though I’m a fan of many a Lutens scent, I tossed this one in a drawer for awhile, figuring it would just be a utilitarian musk with a seriously inflated price tag. I certainly didn’t mean to fall in love with it, it just happened one day when I hurriedly reached for it, mistaking it for a sample bottle of Lutens Datura Noir, which I adore. (Don’t even get me started on that one.)  I rubbed it on my wrists and then it hit me. Oh, Clair de Musc, you are but a devious little minx, masquerading as a plain Jane Musk when you’re actually a quite remarkable Musc. There is nothing dirty or earthy about this musk at all, in fact, it’s luminous, delicate, a veil of scent where other musks are a blanket. The lightest, most subtle touches of neroli, iris and bergamot give it a transparent and fresh quality, making it a sublime scent even for non-musk fans. Now, mind you, I needed to fall in love with yet another $120 bottle of perfume like I need to eat Nutella straight out of the jar. Both equally sublime yet self-destructive passions. And yet, there sits, on my vanity, a sleek full-size bottle of Clair de Musc. I have no willpower.

 

And so a new obsession begins…I must track down rare left-over bottles of Bonne Bell Skin Musk on Ebay and random perfume websites…I must deliberate the strengths of the many new incarnations of musk that are everywhere right now – the “white musks” versus “sheer musks” and “crystal musks.” I must sample them all. And, since I love lists, I must compile a list of the best of this new breed of musk:

 

Fab Five Musks

 

Comptoir Sud Pacifique Cristal de Musc, $85; www.beauty.com.  Luscious orange blossom and hibiscus ripens a base of white musk and musk, for a slightly sweet, summery scent.

 

Jo Malone Wild Fig & Cassis Cologne, from $55; www.jomalone.com. Juicy figs mingled with a whiff of cassis on a cedarwood and musk base.

 

Keiko Mecheri Musk, $115; www.luckyscent.com. Another investment piece for sure, innocent yet decadent at the same time, a true skin scent that never overwhelms.

 

Narciso Rodriguez for Her, from $65; www.sephora.com. Now I know why it’s a best-seller. It’s a sexy day-to-night musk with a dose of honey flower and orange blossom for a velvety finish.

 

Serge Lutens Clair de Musc, $120; www.neimanmarcus.com. You’ve been duly warned of its divinity.