Autumn, but not here..
Well, first off, welcome to Autumn. We are still getting warm days here (with Santa Ana’s returning later in the week) but the evenings are wonderfully cool and crisp and there’s even a vicious rumor that we may even get some rain. It’s to be hoped not gobs and gobs of it so people don’t have to sandbag and houses don’t go slip-sliding down hills, but slow, steady, and between the hours of 2 and 5AM would be very nice.
So once the temps dip I do start gravitating to some of the heavier hitters in the cupboard that I wouldn’t dare spritz on in the summer months. Musks are ones that I reach for. I was cruising through somewhere on the interwebs and someone (I forget who, if it was you please chime in) mentioned this one. Looking it up on Amazon and seeing that it was under $8 I figured, how wrong could it be?
Well, there was a hiccup- the package arrived with a crushed box and no product. The Amazon people and site are of little help (why am I paying you for Prime again? So Bezos can have a mini-yacht to go from his huge one to his DeathStar-sized one?) however the seller was immediately attentive and sent a new one right away. So kudos for their customer service.
So how is it? It’s a nice, if synthetic smelling musk. To me that is; for all I know it could be all-natural, but I would need the Hubble Space telescope to read the ingredients, the type is so small. It is a little more than a skin scent- it’s not clean sheets. It’s a lot less that the barnyard, scare-the-horses, take-me-you-brute-you kind of thing that people have ascribed to ones like Muscs Kublai Khan (FYI- back to that name and available at the Lutens website.) I do get something a bit soapy in there, as if they had managed to distill Kiehl’s musk body wash and add it into the oil. It wears close to the skin and smells.. good. A bit like that cashmere sweater, but one that’s been worn a few times. Not enough that you would send it to the drycleaners holding it with tongs, mind you, but definitely as if it had had a few wearings. Nice, in other words.
A Musk Deer. Cute, huh?
I tried it layered under a couple of Neil Morris’ Flowers For Men and liked it- it added a bit of “oomph” onto them that wears well in cold weather. On it’s own it stays fairly close to the skin and is neither overpoweringly drrrty nor wan and underpowered. I find oils project less, and this is one of those.
They have a bunch of other scents, all under $10 and a sampler of 6 different oils in this roll-on size for $22 with tax. Of course I ordered, so look for another Cheap and Cheerful coming soon to a Posse near you..
Photos are mine, Pexels and Wikimedia Commons. I purchased my bottle at Amazon
I had a couple of Al-Rehab scents (not this one) and remember liking them because they do stay close to the skin! I am slooooowly coming to like skin musks – maybe this one would fit the bill!
There’s a couple more in the six pack. More to come. But next time it’s Diorling being reviewed.
Some of the best scents are leftover perfume on the collar of a coat or a sweater. The challenge is remembering what I wore that day! A skin scent that delivers that right from the get go would be a winner. Thanks Tom!
I always do that- I will pick up a sweater I wore a few days ago or a shirt that is ready to wash and sniff it and think “day-um, what was was that?”
Best thing about this one? $8 delivered. They’re practically paying you to wear it.
What fun! I have used SL Clair de Musc and the Kiehls to add a nice musky base. I recently ordered some cheap-n-cheerful, we’ll see what happens (keeping mum until I discover if I can smell them haha.) Musk is funny — sometimes I can smell it intensely, sometimes barely at all. Must be the aromachemical makeup.
Well I hope you can smell them and hope you will post!
Years ago, a friend who has family in Pakistan came back from a trip with a small bottle of musk attar for me. It does smell of barnyard. Like seriously. and stains anything it touches, including skin. so, have to be careful with it. I wore it a couple of times solo and it is just way too much — much more so than MKK etc. when I do bring it out now it gets layered, as you did, over flowers and is much easier to manage.
A friend of mine who had access gave me a smidge of real honest civet (they annoy the cat I am told, but don’t hurt it getting it) and boy is that funky. Not just barnyard, but barnyard with a 70’s “bow chicka wow wow” soundtrack. A little too much even for me.
Are Arabian perfume oils taking over from “made for the Arab market Beastmode megabuck brojuices”?
Dear Lord I hope so!
I think these are the real thing that’s always been there. The Beastmode Megabucks ones are the perfume equivalent of designer Tequilas fronted by sports figures or action movie heroes. Bombastic, not better.
Fun read! This new cheap and cheerful does not interest me that much. Phew! I’m finally starting to see daylight in my samples list. I did add a Caswell-Massey Lilac sample to my Luckyscent order as well as samples from two Maison Rebatchi perfumes, both created by Maurice Roucel.
Well, there six more coming so perhaps one of those will work?
There’s definitely a chance of that happening plus in the last several years I’ve developed a real liking for perfume oils.
I have as well. I like that they wear close and seem to last better.