No 2: Tonkin 15ml By Ensar Oud
How surreal that musk from Vietnam was considered a closed chapter of history. Then, out of nowhere, like a bowling ball crashing through the window, the Sultan’s vault broke open and what came out hit like a comet which left a crater in the perfume world.
He gave you musk so old and sticky and black and oozing with an animalic roar that would make most perfumers tremble – this was not the musc they’re sold and told to use – the kind that looks like water, nice and clean.
He spoiled us. After smelling the SQ aromatics stowed away over half a century… how do you go Yessir! to big bro now? You got to trade in your bootlegs for the stuff of legend – literally… academic papers wrote about this musk like it’s an artifact, a prehistoric relic we know once existed but nobody ever saw or smelled.
Not to take anything away from the first No 2, but if you wanted to make a musk perfume to end all musk perfumes, this is the contraband you wish you could dunk into your blend.
Nobody saw it coming. Then… bam. Smack in the middle of lockdown as you wait to hear what the lab says about your empty vials, you get handed Vietnam’s forgotten treasure with an obvious mandate, “Here, go make it now!…”
