Musk

Ingredient Guide

Musk is the most carnal of all fragrance materials. It has the sensuality of a fine layer of skin and can readily heighten all the senses.

Christine Nagel

Musk is surely one of the best-known fragrance materials, familiar even to people who are not interested in perfume. Yet I also think it is one of the most misunderstood. Contrary to what many people imagine, musk is not used only as a “sexy scent.”

Musk does indeed have sensuality and warmth, with a skin-like scent, but it is also used to balance a perfume’s composition, slow the evaporation of other fragrance materials, and make the scent last longer. It is found not only in perfume but in many other scented products, including soap, shampoo, and laundry detergent, particularly in the case of synthetic musks.

So if you ask at a perfume counter, “Do you have any fragrances containing musk?”, the answer is likely to be, “It is in most perfumes.” You may be more likely to find what you want by asking, “Do you have any perfumes built around an animalic musk?” or “Do you have any perfumes built around a clean, soapy musk?”

There are animal-derived musks, plant-derived musks, and synthetic fragrance materials.

Creating perfume without musk is like cooking without butter.

Issac Sinclair, perfumer for Abel

Animal-Derived Musk (Natural Musk)

Originally, the word musk referred to an animal-derived fragrance material.

A gland located between the genitals and navel of adult male musk deer secretes pheromones that attract females. Smelled directly, this secretion has an extremely strong, unpleasant odor, but when heavily diluted it becomes very pleasant; this is what is called musk. The name comes from the animals collectively classified in the genus Moschus and known as musk deer.
The scent is astonishingly powerful. It is even said that a few drops placed on a handkerchief can still be smelled forty years later.

These deer live in forests in places such as India, Pakistan, Tibet, China, Siberia, and Mongolia. In the past, large numbers were hunted for sale on the black market, where musk sold for around ¥4.5 million per kilogram. However, a single deer yielded barely 10 g of musk, if that, and it is said that 140 to 160 deer were killed to obtain 1 kg. There were methods of collecting it without killing the animal, but unfortunately these were rarely used, and many musk deer were sacrificed.

Its first use in the perfume industry was in the Arab world and the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century, when it was used not only for its fragrance but also as a treatment. Al-Kindi, well known as a philosopher, is also said to have created many fragrances. The appeal of musk spread through this region and eventually reached countries around the world.

Sadly, natural musk is no longer available for use. What you can buy on the market is likely to be synthetic. Yet we use it to get as close as we can to the scent of natural musk.

François Demachy

Its scent is described in many ways: animalic, sweet, creamy, powdery, rich, leathery, spicy, and woody. It has a complexity that cannot be summed up simply as sexy. Since its original character is a dirty, unpleasant animal odor, sometimes described as “skanky”, it can also seem to appeal to the instinctive side of living creatures.

Along with civet, castoreum, and ambergris, musk is classified as a natural animal-derived fragrance material. The finest grade is Tonkin musk, but it cannot be used today because musk deer are regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Plant-Derived Musk (Botanical Musk)

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, natural musk had become so expensive and ethically problematic that plant-derived alternatives began to be used. These were botanical musks such as angelica and ambrette seed. They can serve as substitutes because they contain aromatic components shared with musk.

White Musk (Synthetic Musk)

Then, in 1979, when musk deer became endangered and hunting was prohibited to protect them, synthetic musk came into use. Animal-derived natural musk is now almost never used.

Synthetic musk was discovered by Albert Baur in 1888. Because of its hydrophobic properties, it was initially used in laundry detergent and had a clean, sweet, soapy scent. This differed from the dirty, animalic character of natural musk.
In 1926, the Nobel laureate Lavoslav Ružička became the first person to synthesize musk on a commercial scale. He was then working at Firmenich and is said to have competed with companies such as DuPont in the development of synthetic musk. In contrast to animal musk, they called it “white musk.”

A scent is made up of several molecules. The main odor molecule in musk obtained from musk deer is called muscone, and its isolated or synthesized form is synthetic musk. Many other synthetic musks also exist, each with a different scent.

The concept of white musk became established and commercially available in the late 1970s, when the hunting of musk deer was prohibited.

The Body Shop was a pioneer in synthetic and plant-derived musks. Its first perfume, White Musk (1981), achieved cult popularity in the 1980s and 1990s.
A few years earlier, in 1978, Jean Laporte, founder of niche perfumery pioneer L’Artisan Parfumeur, created Mûre et Musc, combining blackberry with white musks.

Today, white musks are often used to shape a formula, for example by making its scent last longer. Because they are far less expensive than natural musk, they appear in many perfumes.

There are many different kinds of synthetic musk. If you would like to explore further, I recommend reading the references.

What Does It Smell Like in Perfume?

In perfume, musk is not the name of a single substance but a category encompassing many materials with different scents and structures. The synthetic molecule Muscenone Delta has a powdery, cosmetic softness with a faint animalic shadow, supporting the scent from the heart through the base. Exaltolide combines a smooth musk character with a fruity facet, adding depth, roundness, and a skin-like feel to a composition. Even within the musk category, diffusion and texture vary from molecule to molecule. “White musk” likewise does not denote one specific substance, but a clean-smelling musk character.

Choosing a fragrance with musk

Musk ranges from freshly washed cleanliness to powderiness and skin-like warmth. There is more to explore than soap, including its relationships with flowers and fruit.

• Bright and clean: Start with musk accompanied by white flowers or light woods.
• Sweet and soft: Heliotrope adds a powdery quality, while fruit brings sweetness or juiciness.
• The warmth of skin or leather: Suede or leather gives musk a darker side beyond cleanliness.

Two fragrances featuring musk

for her PURE MUSC Eau de Parfum (Narciso Rodriguez)

Musk is layered with white flowers such as orange blossom and jasmine, together with cashmeran wood. Soft musk and warm woods surround the brightness of the flowers.

for her MUSC NOIR Eau de Parfum (Narciso Rodriguez)

Plum, heliotrope and a suede-leather accord accompany the musk. Compared with PURE MUSC’s white flowers, sweet fruit, powdery flowers and soft leather give it a different character.

Find your next fragrance

In Fragrance Finder, choose “Favorite fragrances & notes” on the home screen, then look for notes you enjoy under “Favorite notes”. Select from the available suggestions and press “Next”.