Tonkin Musk 5ml Decant By Ensar Oud
I’ve been fortunate to handle lots of musk in my career. As a result, I have my fair share of prejudice against the marketing around musk… all the white musks, blue musks, red musks… even pink musk!
Then there’s ‘black musk’.
As easy as all the fake musks are to dismiss, you can’t help but wonder if there was some distant reality that gave birth to the claims backing ‘black’ musk because in academic literature black is the only color associated to musk (referring to moschus fuscus).
It wasn’t until I opened a stash of musk that belonged to the don of fragrance collectors and perfumery’s most legendary patron, that my disbelief set in.
Amidst the ancient Tibetan and Mongolian pods, there was a bag that was… different.
When you open that bag, the potency of the aroma that blasts out is unmatched by anything you’ve smelled before. When you hold these pods and study them up close, you’re sure they could be centuries old. It was like black tar, like a proper paste of black ink, as if the pods had been fermenting for a hundred years.
The potency, the ferocity of this musk, and its animalic beauty – a savage grandeur – is incredible. And everything that it touches, it transmutes into gold… as it did with the rare Vietnamese oud we previously infused with it.
My most lavish perfumes contain Tonkin musk: Notes From Underground, Chypre Sultan, and Private Blend. And the one thing they share is… transcendence. A shimmering debonaire quality permeates the notes as if breathing class into all of the ingredients it comes into contact with.
To compose a perfume around Tonkin musk and name it after this legendary aromatic was a different challenge altogether.
TOP NOTES
Ginger
Yuzu
Peach
Lavender
HEART NOTES
Violet
Mimosa
Japanese Rose
Roman Camomile
Lily of the Valley
Tuberose
BASE NOTES
Royal Tonkin Musk
Wild Papuan Oud
Vintage Filaria Oud
Vintage Timor Sandalwood
Oakmoss
Orris
Many scent pyramids you see are pretty complete – they just don’t show the ratios. But the above are only some of the aromatics that went into composing this thickly layered fragrance and only give you a hint of what to expect – because all these ingredients are filtered through the magical prism of what I believe to be the true origin of black musk.
