Old and New: Serge Lutens Muscs Kublai Khan

So you read the saga of the car last time. I didn’t mention that I was actually saving up for a different one that was sold before I could get to it. Which was kind of a blessing in disguise because it left me with a little bit of money to play with. Not enough for a face lift or a European vacation, but enough that I could splurge on a bell jar of Muscs Kublai Khan when Serge Lutens sent me yet another email telling me it was back for only about the next ten minutes or so and if I didn’t get some I would never see it again. Plus I got a branded travel sprayer (value $1000!?!) and samples (and shipping) for free. How things have changed since the old “Exclusives/Exports” days when the bell jars were only sold in Paris or shipped within the EU. (Was that revenge for the whole “Freedom Fries” silliness?)

MKK wasn’t the first bell jar I jumped through hoops to get. That was Chene, which I had shipped to a friend’s parents house in the EU when he was going home for the holidays. He kindly offered to carry it back for me. He is a nice friend.

MKK was one I had my BFF pick up. I admit I majorly whined and begged and cajoled to have her stop in Paris on her way to a wedding in the South of France (I know, rough life.) She came to visit and presented it to me, telling me how she had to drag her mother and recalcitrant nephew to the Palais Royale to get it for me. She neglected to tell me until later (when I saw the bottles on her dressing table) that she bought three of his creations for herself and her Mom bought two others as well. No word on whether the recalcitrant nephew purchased. But I had my bottle, and before Barney’s brought the whole line including bell jars to the store on Wilshire, an easy stroll from my hovel. Until Barneys themselves went bankrupt.

Now I had of course heard rumors that MKK was redone (and had seen on their site that it was briefly called just “Muscs” {or maybe “Kahn”}) but I figured “how bad could it be?”

Bad. Then really good.

First opening did not augur well. The new juice is slightly lighter in color, not the rich brown of the stuff I have. At first whiff it is disappointingly not as rich as the older stuff, and I can smell a bit more of the fecal aspect that others have fled from in the old formula. The older one is more rounded, more rosy, the new sharper and more skanky. Normally I am totally into the skank, but I prefer the shading and depth of the older one. The older one is also far more present in the first hours of wearing, for good or bad.

But as time went on something curious happened- the new one seemed to become more like the old as the old one faded in comparison into a more “perfumey,” conventional scent. Both stay close to the skin (I dabbed from the stopper since I only had one sprayer) but the new version not only lasts markedly longer (I washed it off in the shower after 18 hours to retest) but maintains the balance of roses, musk and spices where the older one is pretty much done after 8 hours- as a matter of fact the new one even survived the shower and multiple hand washings to be discernible long after. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you.

Say it like Kirk: “KHAN!!”

Of course some of these differences could be because of the fact that I am testing a bottle that might have been mixed in the last month or two to one that was mixed in the aughts. Or, because even with my careful storage in it’s box in a hall closet in my apartment that never gets hotter than 70 degrees or colder than 50 things change. But I have to admit that I was a bit scared to have this be a bust- I guess I am the sort who girds his loins against disappointment and is happy when the opposite happens.

The “New” MKK made me happy.

MKK is available at the Serge Lutens website, $305 for a bell jar, shipped. My bottles in the photo were purchased from them and at the now defunct Barney’s Beverly Hills. Samples of the vintage can be had from Surrender to Chance.

Photos are mine, Wimedia Commons, and Pexels