The Best Real Musk Niche Fragrances (Deer Musk and True Animalics)

In 1911, musk reached London, chiefly from Shanghai, in small rectangular boxes called caddies. They were opened on arrival, and every pod was probed with a thin-bladed knife before it was graded. The finest, Tonquin, came nearly round, its top usually a thin, iridescent blue skin and its underside still the deer's own hide, brownish hairs gathered around a small opening near the centre. About half its weight was musk. A fresh pod smelled of ammonia and leather. Once it was opened and its dark reddish-brown grains were left to dry in the air, that sharpness lifted. Dried, musk turns powdery and sweet, close to the natural smell of human skin.

All of it comes from the adult male musk deer, which grows no antlers; instead, a pair of long, very sharp upper canines points straight down from his mouth. The musk forms as a paste in a hair-covered sac on his belly, between the sex organs and the navel. Cut out and dried, the paste turns to dark grains. Old medicine diluted them in alcohol as tinctures or blended them with oil, and both methods survive on this shelf. Only a very small share of perfumes made today contain any. Each of these seven does, and names its musk by origin.

Steeped in old sandalwood

Sandalwood runs under six of the seven bottles on this shelf, and in AlGhaliya it is the oil itself.

Elixir Attar named it for ghaliya and filled it with three musks, Nepali, Kashmiri and Siberian, macerated in rare-aged Mysore sandalwood, with New Zealand white ambergris and black ambergris melted straight into the same oil. Its flowers come as enfleurages: Bulgarian rose with lilac and freesia, gardenia and tuberose, over a dry line of Sri Lankan oud. It opens like a vase of cut flowers and closes on salty ambergris and a soft, powdery musk lying on the old wood. How much musk and ambergris goes in varies from batch to batch.

Black pods from a Sultan's treasury

The strangest musk on this shelf comes from Mongolian pods whose leather has turned nearly black with age, smooth to the touch and firm under the blade. Cut them open and the grains inside are still moist. Some of those who have handled these pods believe they may be centuries old. They passed from one custodian to the next until they entered the treasury of the late Sultan Qaboos of Oman, and their grains now sit in Ensar Oud's Mongolian Musk.

Mongolian pods are almost hairless next to Siberian ones, and the smell is bitter and herbaceous with a sweetness under it, faintly coastal, a little like ambergris but closer to truffle.

At its heart sits an attar Sultan Qaboos composed himself, set in pu-erh tea and ylang ylang. Carob and black pepper come first, the carob dark enough to read as cocoa, and the musk settles over Rayong and Indian agarwood and massoia bark. It keeps shifting on skin hour by hour, so the descriptions vary: chocolate, truffle, honeyed cinnamon, black tea.

The Tonquin in the London caddies was the top grade of pods shipped chiefly from Shanghai. EO2 is built on something else: old Vietnamese musk, written off as gone for good until the Sultan's vault opened. Coriander, cumin and two peppers, Sichuan and pink, crack it open. Jasmine sambac and sticky blackcurrant steep in black tea at the heart, and in the base the musk runs warm and sweaty with castoreum and beeswax.

Siberian, at full strength

Where Mongolian turns bitter and sweet, Siberian is sharp and urinous, and it fills a room fast. Siberian deer musk is what Areej Le Doré works with.

War and Peace 2 is a dark, animalic and leathery composition built around a co-absolute of wild Siberian deer musk, ambergris and castoreum that Russian Adam created. It opens on amber resin 35 million years old, passes through two roses, Taif and a 2019 ruh gulab, with orris and Indian patchouli, and comes to rest in oakmoss and vetiver around the musk, ambergris and castoreum. All three are real; the civet beside them is synthetic. Next to the first War and Peace, it runs a little sweeter and more resinous.

Musk under sweeter things

Mixed into a perfume, musk lifts the materials around it, and it can do that from so far down that it reads as warmth more than animal.

The extra-musk edition keeps a pouch of ultra-fine mesh full of musk grains inside the bottle, so the perfume goes on drawing musk as it rests, and the mesh keeps the sprayer from clogging. The perfume itself opens on French vanilla and balsam of Peru, something close to a bowl of cinnamon cereal, and the base is Palembang oud and aged Mysore with a rare, sweet Mongolian musk, tinctured. There are no synthetics in it.

The name promises honey and the notes list none; the hive is there as propolis and clarified beeswax. Lavandin and August peaches come first, then hay and clover, and the beeswax settles into three sandalwoods, Mysore, Hainan and Papuan, with wild Hainan agarwood. The Tibetan musk is the floor all of that stands on.

Yuzu fizzes, and dewy raspberry blooms out of it, brushed with Georgian rose otto and honeysuckle; gardenia joins in the heart. Underneath lie wild oud and creamy sandalwood, both from Sri Lanka, and the Siberian musk gives it all a clean softness with something primal in it. It smells of late afternoon light in the Hamptons.

The shelf at a glance

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between real musk and synthetic musk?

Real musk comes from a hair-covered pod on the belly of the adult male musk deer; dried, its paste becomes dark grains. A synthetic substitute was already being made for perfumery by 1911, and today only a very small share of perfumes use natural musk at all.

Which fragrances here actually contain real deer musk?

All seven name their musk. AlGhaliya carries Nepali, Kashmiri and Siberian musk; Ensar Oud Mongolian Musk uses Mongolian grains from the treasury of the late Sultan Qaboos, and EO2 Tonkin old Vietnamese Tonkin musk; War and Peace 2 holds wild Siberian deer musk in a co-absolute with ambergris and castoreum. Vanilla Waves V2 Extra Musk uses sweet Mongolian musk, So Long, Honey uses Tibetan musk and The Hamptons Siberian.

What does real deer musk smell like?

Fresh from the pod it smells of ammonia and leather. Dried into grains it turns powdery and sweet, close to the natural smell of human skin, and the origin shows: Siberian is sharp and urinous, Mongolian bitter and herbaceous with a sweet, truffle-like edge.

How does the musk get into these perfumes?

In AlGhaliya, three musks are macerated in rare-aged Mysore sandalwood. Vanilla Waves V2 Extra Musk carries a tincture of sweet Mongolian musk and keeps a mesh pouch of grains in the bottle, and War and Peace 2 holds wild Siberian musk in a co-absolute with ambergris and castoreum made by Russian Adam.