My favorite musks smell animalic: wild, oily, hairy and sweaty. In a word: sexy. Such musks are an endangered species (much like many of their original animal sources). Whenever I’m asked what fragrance notes I hate, white “toddler” musks always get a mention (as do Calone and Iso E Super and Cashmeran). Yet, I can easily name you perfumes I own that contain each one of those ingredients and I absolutely love and wear these perfumes all the time. I enjoy Jardins d’Écrivains George and Hermès Eau de Gentiane Blanche — both contain white musk. All ingredients can be used masterfully to highlight or to augment other notes in a fragrance; white musk in the right hands (or Nose) is not juvenile, obnoxious, cloying, utilitarian — or readily apparent. But, to be frank, white musk is not ‘musk’ to me, and if a perfume house puts ‘musk’ in the name of a fragrance, I expect some colorful MUSK (not white fluff).

I was interested to try two new musk fragrances that found their way to me in December; these are the first perfumes I’ve smelled from the niche lines Aether and Mad et Len…

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