text stringlengths 0 188k |
|---|
The converse is also true, of course. If the musk comes from illegal hunting in a country that has banned musk deer hunting, then the musk is a product of a criminal activity and is the proverbial fruit of the poisoned tree. |
Few people in the perfume sector want to talk about musk. The list of people who didn’t want to be quoted in this article is longer than the list of people who agreed to it. |
It begs the question: if there is legal musk to be obtained, then why all the secrecy and reluctance to talk about it? |
Most musk on the market is still illegal: The amount of illegal musk on the market is still far greater than the amount of legal musk, and therefore, the risk of a perfumer or attar maker getting their hands on illegal musk is very high, and; |
Despite the existence of legal deer musk, the majority of the deer musk available on the market is still illegal. Siberian musk is available only to perfumers and attar-makers with the right contacts, paperwork, permits, etc., and therefore the quantities available to the market are very small. |
Both wild and farmed musk grains are legally available through Asian pharmaceutical companies, but again, you’d have to be either Chinese or a practitioner of TCM or ayurvedic medicine to gain access to them, and even then, most grades are not suitable for use in perfumery. |
On the other hand, there is plenty of illegal musk on the market. Illegal musk means, specifically, musk from a deer that is highly endangered, and/or from a country or region where musk deer hunting has been banned. |
The fact that there is so much illegal musk in circulation suggests that neither the CITES convention nor national laws banning musk deer hunting have had much of an effect, both in terms of stopping poaching or stemming the flow of illegal musk to the market. |
One of the most common Western misconceptions about deer musk is that the CITES designation of the musk deer as an endangered species put an end to deer hunting, and that the shy little deer are bouncing around happily and uninterrupted in the foothills of the Himalayas. This is simply not true. In fact, musk deer hunt... |
In fact, the musk trade is a good example of what happens when overwhelming demand for a product meets the legal banning of said product – i.e., business as normal, albeit conducted under the dark cover of illegality, smuggling, and general tomfoolery. In most cases, the amount of the banned material for sale on the ma... |
The correlation between banning and black marketeering applies to other materials too. In an interview with me, JK DeLapp of The Rising Phoenix Perfumery, noted this about the case of the African civet cat: |
“20 years ago, the public pushed cosmetic companies to stop using civet due to the cruelty involved for the civet cat in the extraction process. Did this improve the conditions of civet harvesting? Quite the opposite. Instead, the ban pushed civet paste prices into freefall and brought the civet farmers to the brink of... |
This is borne out in countries that have banned musk deer hunting outright. For example, India and Pakistan both have laws banning the killing of the musk deer on their territories, but don’t have the resources to control or stop the hunting of the deer. Likewise, the Mongolian government banned musk deer hunting in 19... |
In some regions of India, when deer hunters are caught by local government officials or rangers, the musk pods are confiscated and then later on sold by the local government. Confiscated musk therefore becomes legal musk that can be bought and sold for profit on the open market - fruit from the poisoned washed clean ag... |
China has a legal source of musk, namely their musk farms. And yet the output is nowhere near the level demanded by the market, and so most of the world’s illegal musk ends up in China. |
Due to the fact that the market is flooded with more illegal than legal musk, it is understandable that perfumers are reluctant to either get involved with musk or even talk about musk in public. Any connection to criminality is fatal to a brand, especially the small, indie artisans for whom a large part of their succe... |
And now, for the really big issue: ethics. The second reason why many small-batch, artisanal perfumers will not create perfumes with real musk in them is the fear that their brand will be associated with animal cruelty. |
It is fair to say that some perfumers themselves believe the use of deer musk to be cruel and unethical. But for most perfumers or attar makers interested in working with deer musk, the real ethical dilemma is tied up in the fear that their customers will accuse them of supporting animal cruelty or the decimation of an... |
Most people in the West consider deer musk to be ethically problematic if not downright wrong. Part of this is due to the issues over legality, with most people assuming that all deer musk is illegal and harvested from an animal close to extinction, and therefore possessed of the same criminal status as ivory. And, to ... |
To be clear, deer hunting is cruel and unethical when the animals are killed illegally – poachers are unconcerned about animal suffering and will often leave the deer to die a horrible death in their crude steel traps. They care only about the musk sac, and will discard the rest of the body. A musk sac obtained in this... |
By corollary, musk farming and legal hunting through license programs yield musk that is more sustainable from an ethical standpoint. |
In the case of Siberia, the species of deer being hunted is not a species threatened with extinction, and the hunting lottery system means that only a finite number of musk deer are killed in the region each year. The most valuable by-product of the Siberian musk deer is indeed its musk sac, but not a single part of th... |
During a legal, licensed hunt, the kill is as humane as possible (shooting instead of trapping) and the proceeds help support local families who live off the seasonal hunt. Hunting has always played an important role in the local economies of wherever a valuable resource lies, be it salmon, deer, oud, or sandalwood. |
Many people just don’t like the idea of hunting animals in the wild. Fair enough. A big concern over hunting animals in the wild boils down to the issue of motive – are we hunting for sport or because the animal is useful to us? Musk deer hunting is not like fox hunting, where the animal is killed for sport. The huntin... |
Maybe it’s just that when we talk about deer musk, the kill is instantly more visual to us in our head, more vivid, than the slaughter of, say, chickens and cows. Statistically speaking, a far greater number of domestic animals such as cows, chickens, and pigs are slaughtered to give us meat and leather. It’s just that... |
Perhaps the only real way forward through the murky matter of musk as consumers is to be better informed about where it comes from and to buy judiciously. If you are in the position to buy an attar or tincture or perfume with deer musk in it, ask the right questions of the vendor: from what species of musk deer does th... |
On a larger scale, the way forward is to throw more support behind legal hunting programs and musk deer farming. In China, although it is unknown whether or not the animals suffer during the bi-annual harvesting of their musk paste, it is positive news that the deer does not lose his life and that an effort is being ma... |
Ethics are also closely tied to species endangerment. It is illegal hunting and poaching that drives the numbers of endangered deer species down to extinction levels, not controlled hunting, and not the Chinese musk farms. Illegally obtained musk grains cause suffering and cruelty to the animal, do not benefit local ec... |
The huge amount of illegal deer musk that ends up on the market is in itself is evidence that laws banning musk deer hunting don’t work, and in fact, suggests that increased investment in musk farming and controlled hunting licenses might be a more appropriate way forward in terms of conservation and getting deer numbe... |
Musk is one of the four great animalic bases of perfumery, the other three being ambergris, civet, and castoreum. When smelled in isolation in their pure state, all four of these animalic materials can be foul to the human nose; however, in dilution, they each produce deep, drawn-out basso fundos of aromatic sound wave... |
Animalics are all excellent fixatives, each serving to stabilize the other more volatile notes in a scent and enrich the blend as effectively as a pound of butter added to a dry cake. Their value in perfumery, therefore, is inestimable. |
But musk is perhaps the most valuable of all the animalics, because not only does it have the deepest fixative powers but it also adds its own super-complex, warmly-furred, animalic aroma to the totality of the scent. It possesses a consistent “roundness” or “fullness” that distinguishes it from the other animalics. |
We are conditioned to love musk in perfume precisely because, more than anything else, it reminds us so strongly of the pheromone-rich smell of the skin of the people we love. Think of the intimate scent of your spouse’s nape after a long day’s work, or the smell of the back of your children’s knees, and that is a smel... |
But it’s also difficult to talk about musk in perfumery without mentioning the elephant in the room, which is that most musks used in perfumery today – and that largely includes larger-scale attar perfumery, by the way – rely on synthetics, botanicals, or humanely-obtained animalic substances such as hyraceum to recrea... |
As mentioned above, the commercial perfume sector does not use real deer musk anymore, in any way, shape, or form. Apart from the legal and ethical concerns behind the use of deer musk, the big concern for commercial perfume companies is always going to be the issues of |
Access to large enough amounts of musk grains to fill the perfume formulas for hundreds of thousands of bottles of perfume worldwide, and; |
Consistency or replicability, the process of ensuring the same aroma of the material across all batches |
Some exclusive perfumes may use natural botanical musks such as ambrette seed and hyraceum to create a musky effect, but most rely on synthetic musks. And although modern musk synthetics are incredibly complex, any attempt to capture the full range of complex components and flavonoids of genuine deer musk with syntheti... |
These two issues – access to adequate supply of the material and consistency of product – are exactly the same reasons why commercial perfumery does not use significant quantities of natural ambergris, pure oud oil, pure jasmine oil, and other equally costly botanicals and animalics. There are exceptions, of course, bu... |
The same problem applies to large-scale attar perfumery. By large-scale attar perfumery, I mean the Chanels and Diors of the Middle-Eastern market – massive companies like Abdul Samad al Qurashi, Ajmal, and Arabian Oud that have branches all over the world and do a brisk trade in attars and oils each year. In general, ... |
For these larger attar companies, the importance of ensuring a consistent quality of raw material from tola to tola, batch to batch, and so on, is an absolute business necessity and, as a production issue, on a par with the quality control concerns of commercial perfume companies and fragrance labs. Customers will comp... |
So while these companies might use some raw deer musk in their musky attars, batch consistency and supply issues make it necessary for them to stretch out the natural musk through use of other musky-smelling materials such as ambrette seed, ethical animal musks like hyraceum, and a wide variety of musk synthetics such ... |
This will surely not come as a shock to anyone with a bit of common sense. Most people know that many, if not most of the oud oils being sold as pure on the Arabian market in the UAE and elsewhere have been adulterated and “stretched out” with fillers, vetiver oil, saffron, ambrette, other expensive botanicals, and com... |
The issue of the use of real deer musk in artisanal, small batch attar and indie perfumery is a little more complex than in commercial perfumery. It is also different from that of the large-scale attar companies. |
To be clear, when I say “artisanal and small-batch perfumers”, I mean the one-man shows operating out of a rickshaw – basically, one person working away at distilling, tincturing, or macerating raw materials and composing perfumes either in their own studio or in situ, in the jungles of the Far East. |
These are not the big boys like Ajmal or Guerlain. They are the DIY-ers of the perfume world. This definition covers artisans all the way from Mandy Aftel of Parfums Aftelier and Josh Lobb of Slumberhouse to Sultan Pasha of Sultan Pasha Attars, Russian Adam of FeelOud, and JK DeLapp of The Rising Phoenix Perfumery. |
Not all of these artisans work with real musk, of course – some do, and some do not. Sultan Pasha, for example, studies real deer musk only in an attempt to recreate its aroma in his attars using other means, a proprietary mix of expensive synthetic musks and naturals. But he does not use real musk in his attars. |
But if any artisan attar maker or small match perfumer wanted to work with deer musk, then they are really the only ones in the wider perfumery landscape that can. The smaller an artisan perfume operation, the more feasible it becomes to work with real deer musk. |
Why? Well, first of all, the amounts of deer musk changing hands for perfume purposes are tiny, because most musk goes into Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. Working with the crumbs from the rich man’s table works perfectly for small artisanal perfumers, because they only make perfume in small quantities anyway. |
Small-batch artisans also don’t have to worry about ensuring consistency from batch to batch, because their customers expect and even value variances based on the behavior of different batches of raw materials. And given that artisans sell small numbers of bottles, they don’t have to worry about securing large enough q... |
But it’s hard to discount that certain cultural factors play into this as well. For example, there is a larger and more culturally-acceptable appetite for deer musk and other natural animal products in the Middle East. Middle and Far Eastern-based attar makers have a much easier job selling deer musk attars and mukhall... |
The upshot of this is that a small number of artisanal attars and small-batch perfumes do contain genuine deer musk. I have listed some of them in the list of 20 musk perfumes to try, appended to this article. |
However – and this is a big caveat – it is incredibly difficult, even for attar makers and artisanal perfumers, to identify genuine sources for deer musk. Because of legal restrictions on its trade and use in many countries, there is a sizeable black market for musk, and many sources turn out to be fake or adulterated.... |
Therefore, it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to find a reputable source of legal deer musk grains or tinctures. Then you are faced with the problem of how to “sell” the idea of natural musk to customers. |
Some attar makers and perfumers succeed in this venture, and use deer musk tinctures or macerations in their perfumes. Some are open about their musk usage, and even use it as a selling point. Yet others use deer musk in perfumes and are discreet about the fact. Not to forget, there are also many custom-made attars bei... |
Deer musk is not the only substance that gives a perfume a musky smell, of course. The main alternatives are: (i) cruelty-free animalic substances, (ii) botanical or plant-derived musks, and (iii) synthetic musks. |
There are other more sustainable and ethical sources of animal musk than deer musk. For example, many attar makers make use of hyraceum, which is the petrified urine and fecal matter of the Cape hyrax found on rocks. Because hyraceum is harvested without any cruelty to the animal itself and possesses a rich, animalic o... |
Mink musk, rat musk, and skunk musk are also being examined for experimental use in attar perfumery, as stand-ins for deer musk. These types of animal musks are also harvested in a cruelty-free, sustainable manner. |
Out of these, ambrette seed oil, extracted from the musk mallow plant native to India, is perhaps the best known and most highly regarded. Ambrette lends a scent a fresh, woody muskiness that can smell alternatively like green apple peel, pear schnapps, cumin, and freshly-baked bread. |
Wonderfully complex and full-smelling, ambrette seed is unfortunately quite expensive and is therefore now only used in attars where cost is no issue. Thankfully, there exists a synthetic replacement for ambrette seed, called ambrettolide, which is inexpensive and smells very good. |
In the realm of traditional Indian attars, however, natural ambrette oil (mainly the absolute) was the prime “musk” component used in the more complex attars such as black musk attars, shamama, and amberi (ambery) attars. Not only is the ambrette seed native to India, but it was also always less expensive and difficult... |
Even without the question of ethics, deer musk has always been hugely expensive to obtain. Therefore, as explained by Mandy Aftel in her wonderful book, Fragrant, from the moment people first smelled deer musk, they have been trying to create synthetics to replace it. |
The scent of deer musk is naturally complex, consisting of a wide range of compounds such as acids, phenols, fatty waxes, and alcohols, but by far its most important component is muscone. Muscone makes up 2% of the molecular composition and is the prime source of that inimitably “musky” aroma. |
Scientists have successfully isolated individual scent-giving molecules from deer musk and synthesized them in labs. Synthetic musks are subdivided into 3 categories, as follows: nitro musks, polycyclic musk compounds, and macrocyclic musk compounds. |
Without going into too much technical detail, it’s just important to note that nitro musks, which once gave scents such as Chanel No. 5 their slightly sweaty, intimate, and powdery feel, have long been banned due to public health concerns over potential carcinogenic effects. Many people mourn their absence, treasuring ... |
Polycyclic musks are the original “white musk” synthetics that were developed primarily for the laundry detergent segment of the market, because their molecules were large and insoluble enough to have their scent “cling” to the fibers of clothes even after washing. People loved the smell of their laundry after using th... |
Most attars and mukhallats on the cheaper, non-artisan side of the scale use synthetic musks in their formulas, unless they are using an expensive botanical musk such as ambrette. |
Because deer musk is never used in commercial perfumery anymore and because natural, botanical musks are pretty expensive, the real issue in most of perfumery these days isn’t even real versus synthetic, but clean versus dirty. The range of synthetic musk molecules is so incredibly diverse that there is a musk to suit ... |
Some love laundry-clean musks. That is easy to explain - there are firm cultural and historical associations with smelling clean. For many Americans of the 1950’s, for example, when these super musk-charged laundry detergents were first introduced, clean was simply the opposite of dirty, literally a breath of fresh air... |
The bulk of flavor and aroma molecule development by the big flavor and fragrance labs in Switzerland and France is destined for the functional sector, i.e., soaps, shampoos, candles, laundry detergents, and household cleaning agents. R&D naturally focuses on aromas that would be considered desirable by the majority of... |
White musks in both Western and attar perfumery therefore smell soapy, slightly sharp, powdery, and almost aggressively clean – in other words, not a million miles away from what they smell like in laundry detergent. |
But variety is the spice of life. The aromachemical and flavor factories of France and Switzerland have produced broad ranges of different polycyclic and macrocyclic musks to suit every level of tolerance, from the ultra clean Galaxolide (IFF) to the fruity Helvetolide (a Firmenich molecule that smells a little like am... |
In other words, in modern perfumery, every kink is catered to, ranging from the slightly-grubby-but-still-passing-as-innocent musk to the I-just-showered-using-Irish-Spring musk to the bedded-down-with-goats musk. This applies to attar perfumery too, by the way. |
It’s fair to say that no one synthetic musk molecule can ever capture the complexity of genuine deer musk, which is made up of a far broader range of aroma compounds than is present in any synthetic musk molecule. |
However, a skilled perfumer can combine several different types of synthetic animalic substances with naturals – for example, a cocktail of dirtier synthetic musks combined with Ambroxan or natural ambergris tincture, synthetic castoreum, natural hyraceum (Africa Stone), and ambrettolide – and arrive at a result that s... |
Many Western perfumes and Middle-Eastern attars have been very successful at capturing the dynamics of the genuine deer musk smell through use of a combination of synthetic and botanical musks. For example, Muscs Khoublai Kahn by Serge Lutens, Salomé by Papillon, and Musc Tonkin by Parfum d’Empire all smell as convinci... |
Likewise, some of the deer musk attars by Abdul Samad Al Qurashi and Ajmal are deeply convincing, with a couple being possessed of an even dirtier, darker, and more fecal-smelling character than even real deer musk itself. However, often the clue to the presence of synthetic musk in a blend lies in both its extreme fou... |
As with the use of oud and ambergris, the skill of a perfumer and the composition of a perfume almost always transcend the question of its raw materials. In other words, when a perfume is beautiful, it is enough to sit back and enjoy it, without worrying too much about what is natural and what is synthetic. |
Musks are often marketed as red, white, black, or even green. It would be futile to argue that the colors don’t mean anything, because perception-wise, they do. Colors are powerful in terms of the message they send to us. But in reality, since all these musks are synthetic musks, the only real difference between them i... |
White musk, as discussed above is a category of synthetic musk that grew out of the household laundry detergent segment of the market. Because this class of musks were first used in laundry detergent, their fresh, sharp, cottony smell has become forever intertwined with the scent of clean clothes. |
In the context of attar perfumery, white musks are extremely popular and each seller has their own variation on the theme. White musk attars are often colored with a thick white colorant, giving them a cloudy, opaque appearance, a clever visual trick that also helps the brain to identify it as “clean”. White musk attar... |
Red musks are colored a clear, deep rusty-red color and often contain saffron, cinnamon, or clove to “match” the spicy red image of the oil. Needless to say, red musks are not a special variant of natural musk but simply a marketing-driven variation of synthetic musk. It will largely mean to you whatever the color red ... |
Red musk is frequently used in indie oil perfumery, by companies such as BPAL, Alkemia, NAVA, and the like. In the American indie oil sector, the red musk accord is usually blended with a dragon’s blood resin note. Disappointingly, Dragon’s Blood resin does not come from a dragon but from a variety of plants. It is not... |
Black musks are often called Kasturi-type musks in order to drive home the point that they are aping the scent of natural musk that comes from the Kasturi or Tonkin deer. Black musks, if made well and in the traditional Indian manner, are highly complex attars in and of themselves, and can contain anything from patchou... |
An expensive black musk attar made in the traditional manner can be a pleasure to wear; unfortunately most of the black musk attars on the market tend to be made almost entirely with synthetics dissolved in cheap dilutants. In the matter of black musk, aim for the big bucks blends if you want something truly good. In t... |
Green musks and pink musks are monikers only rarely used in attar perfumery, and are more commonly seen in scent descriptions for commercial perfumery and some indie oil companies. Green musks will usually have vetiver or patchouli oils in them, and are perceived as earthy and forest-like (even a little bit “witchy”). ... |
Egyptian musks are unlike the usual red, white, and black variants in that there is a historical and botanical basis for their existence. While nowadays practically all Egyptian musks are made from synthetic white musk plus something else, in the times of Ancient Egypt, the recipe only included natural materials of bot... |
Recipes for the original Egyptian musks vary but almost always mention ambrette seed oil, kyphi (Egyptian pressed incense, a sort of barkhour made from myrrh, mastic, pine resin, red wine, halmaddi, and honey), frankincense, patchouli, and rose oil. It was the ambrette seed oil that gave the blend its muskiness. |
Egyptian-type musks have proved enduringly popular in perfumery, and are still much loved today. Although the recipe is now based entirely on a synthetic musk base, they differ from white musks in being generally creamier, sweeter, and more sensually skin-like, thanks to the inclusion of a more complex line-up of other... |
Modern variants of Egyptian musk scents will almost always include a touch of patchouli and rose, although one of my personal favorites features a fruity jasmine note too. The musky rose and patchouli pairing is a popular motif in Western perfumery, and can be seen in everything from Narciso Rodriguez’ Musc for Her and... |
Marvelous article, the most informative and thorough I've ever read on this subject. Thank you, Claire. |
Wow, what a fantastic article! Thank you Claire. I didn't know about Josh Lobb tincturing his own Siberian Musk. Does anyone know if he uses it in any of his fragrances? |
There is only one CITES-approved seller of musk grains and tincture in the USA, anyone else is viewed as an illegal seller under CITES. |
There is another non-cruelty musk source, the tinctured hair from around the scent glands of a rutting billy goat, which I pioneered in 2007 in my perfume Pan. |
This amazing and intricate and utterly educational article is my new Bible/Torah/Qur'an! As someone who adores musks and animalics in all forms, I will be re-reading and studying this and sending for samples from now till who-knows-when. |
I am genuinely grateful for your extensive work on this, and for your astute and accessible writing style. Love this!! |
I'm a fan of both white and dirty musks, and all varieties in between. Thanks so much for this fantastic article, Claire! |
Thanks so much all for your lovely comments! This has been a huge learning experience for me, and I think I re-wrote the article several times over as new information was coming in! I hope that it's helpful. I have to thank all the artisan perfumers and attar makers who were willing to talk to me behind the scenes, and... |
Thanks for joining the discussion, Anya. I have great respect for you and the work you do in the natural perfumery community. Interesting about the billy goat hair tincture - is that the same material that was later used by Josh Lobb in his New Sibet by any chance? |
Camorr, Josh does not use the natural musk in any of his fragrances. He doesn't believe his customer base would be open to it. Who knows what might happen in the future though. I think that the success of Areej Le Dore with Siberian Musk might get some indie perfumers thinking. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.