Nearly every day I try a sample of someone else’s perfume,
sometimes multiple perfumes in one day. Although I don’t write about them
publicly, I do try them at times when they won’t interfere with my own work.
No matter how they start out, it seems like in the end
what’s left more often than not is musk. Usually it’s a mixed bouquet of
synthetic “white” musks, and much less often some synthetic quasi-musk like
ambroxan. Actually, if there are musks in a perfume I can usually smell them as
top notes, just as I can smell sandalwood or synthetic ambery-woody bases as a
top note, so I know how it will end right from the beginning. Occasionally the
musks remain hidden until somewhere well into the drydown. But in the end,
there’s musk. If nothing else, it’s tenacious.
Don’t get me wrong, I like musk as much as the next person,
maybe more. I just wish that more perfumes dried down to something a little
different, or at least that the standard white musk mixture was combined with other
tenacious elements for interest.
I use musks, including all sorts of synthetic “clean” musks,
synthetic reconstructions of not-so-clean animal musks, and even “botanical
musk”, aka ambrette. I usually don’t use a lot, and quite a few of my perfumes contain
no musks at all. Whipping up a nice white musk base is the simplest thing in
the world and it’s a sure-fire way to have a long-lasting fragrance that smells
good and smells conventional. It’s sort of like using frozen pie crusts to make
pies. Pour in your canned fruity-floral filling and … voila! … a professional-smelling product. Making
a base without the standard musk medley is more of a challenge, but it’s worth
it when the perfume dries down to something a little different, even though it
may be on the weird side and not quite as tenacious.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that using a white musk base
is a cop-out, because there are many wonderful perfumes that need a white musk
base in order to work. It’s just that it seems overused in both mainstream and
niche fragrances.
[Painting of woman in white by Guillaume Seignac, early 1920s; pie photo from Wikimedia]
When composing, it's so easy to say, "What should I use for the base? Ambroxan, Iso E Super, or Auranone/Cosmone, or Verymoss? It makes it so easy, and crafting a really rich base that doesn't overwhelm the upper tiers of the perfume is hard. So, yeah, I think niche brands and mainstream overuse the pie crusts. Today I'm wearing a natural attar of frangipane infused in vetiver, and wow, now that's a rich base. But it would never survive a modern focus group, it's too strong and unusual.
ReplyDeleteMarla, the frangipane in vetiver sounds wonderful. Did you make it yourself? I love the idea of infusing flowers in vetiver.
DeleteI occasionally used those frozen pie crusts but stopped when I realized that the "anti-crust" is full of lard! As an almost ethical vegetarian (whatever that means) I find rendered pig fat in a pie, while traditional, no longer very appetizing and true animal musks in perfume off putting if I know for sure that they are natural animal products (not many of those around, of course). I read from time to time that there is a cruelty free method of harvesting musk from musk deer??? I find that hard to believe. Also, I consider agarwood plantation practices tree torture (but I do still use oud oil from those tortured trees). Gail
ReplyDeleteGail, LOL On the anti-crust! There are so many good reconstructions of animal musks that I see no compelling reason to use the real thing, except just to smell them for educational purposes.
DeleteAgarwood production is a little bit different from the "tree-torture" practice of bleeding trees to collect sap for maple syrup or resin, since the actual fungus-infected wood is harvested. I think the biggest problem is the huge demand for a product that takes a very long time to grow and depends on a pathological condition, either naturally-occurring or induced. Of course people will try to accelerate the process by any means possible and exploit the resource to extinction for short-term profit.
Gail,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you brought up the "tree torture" aspect of cultivated agarwood. Apparently, they are injected with mercury and all sorts of harmful goo to speed the process of making the wood fragrant. I was horrified, because not only is it bad for the trees, but all that goop gets into the environment and ruins the forest and its living creatures as well. I only use synthetic oud now. Do you know if all cultivated agarwood is grown so unethically, or is it just some plantations?
Marla, you bring up a very good point. No one who has not been on site knows exactly what goes into production of anything, and agarwood is probably at the top of the list of things we ought to wonder about. I'm sure there's a wide range of practices, from those that are reasonably ethical to the worst of those you describe, but the consumer really doesn't know. A certain percentage of business people will say anything to sell their product.
ReplyDeleteI use only synthetic oud in my perfumes, partly because of cost, but partly because of the issues you raise. I suspect that a high percentage of the "real" ouds sold are actually synthetic or a mix of real and synthetic. Again, there's no way of knowing for sure.
It makes me angry to think of how people are trashing their environment at an ever-increasing rate.
Marla and Ellen,
ReplyDeleteRegarding agarwood production: There is a video of organic plantation practice on ensaroud.com. Go to the Organic tab on the left and scroll down to Oud Yusuf. If you haven't seen this video its worth watching. Also this site has a lot of other interesting videos and information about the distillation process, etc. I don't shop here, though.
Gail
Gail, this is indeed an interesting website, definitely worth checking out. It would take a while to watch all of the videos! I think organic plantations like the one in the video you mention are few and far between.
DeleteThinking about the process of oud resin production made me start wondering about the infected lodgepole pines in Canada that produce the "blue" wood. I wonder if the blue is a resin response to infection and if it has a distinctive odor. I'll have to ask the Northwest Aromatics folks about it.
That would be interesting to find out! I ordered some samples from Northwest Organics last year after you mentioned them in one of your blogs. Turning the "blue" wood into aromatic oil would be a great use of that material.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, some of the loveliest resinated wood I've smelled came from very large, old and sick Juniper tams that broke during this past winter's ice storm. I didn't save the wood but still have many of the same old sick tams growing in the yard. Gail
So now we just need to set up a still and extract oil from your sick juniper tams! More realistically, I wonder if ground wood chips from them could be tinctured?
Delete