Musk redux

Okay, my Posse Peeps – I’mma fake my way through this timeline because I really do NOT have a sense of time (ask me what years I got married/moved/divorced/moved/worked at X – I dares ya!)

So… let’s harken back to the late 70s – I was part of a crew of young goobers, working at the vaunted Marshall Field & Company (the name hadn’t yet been changed) and… (this is where it gets.. muddled.. in my poor sieve-brain) I ‘think’ one of our ‘clients’ was Jovan.  I say ‘think’ because, to be honest, I wasn’t that much into beauty and perfume yet (though I wore both – a lot ) – I was much more into home goods – just ask me about Wedgwood’s Colonnade Black … or the first Cuisinart..

But several of my cohort wrote the copy for Jovan which (again, with the memory) was headquartered in Chicago… we used to call it ‘JoMAMAvan’ because we were just sooo cute.  I remember (and still have a cuticle oil !!!! – I throw out NOTHING! –   when Jovan did nail products!  Everything was touched with orange (maybe their signature color?) – and everyone Not Me was wearing Jovan Musk.

Now… I only remember that because last Saturday I was trolling our local Goodwill and, right before checkout, noticed a bunch of perfumes in the display case.  There was an appalling Avon, called ‘Clint’ – several minis of that (the charming SA… omg!  the face he made when he cracked open one of those minis!!) – I’m probably showing my savagery here but… yikes!   It could be that the minis – being minis – simply succumbed to the vagaries of Time.  Dunno.

.. and.. bombarded by all the ‘Clint’ (there must’ve been 6-8 of those minis) I nearly missed the gem:  a vintage* bottle of Jovan Musk (for Men) – for $1.99 – BEFORE the Senior Discount!  Pouncing on it, the SA and I both sprayed and sniffed – and were delighted by it (of course, he wasn’t even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye in 1973, the year this was released – but he still ‘gets it’, bless his hort.  I, however, was immediately transported back to the Jurassic Era, aka, Disco!).  Now, back in the 70s, at least in my world, women and men didn’t wear gender-fluid scents and most masculines were more in the piney-woods/bayberry camp  (remember Polo?  1978 – I’ll bet you could smell it on the MOON! but now I’m wondering if it was just the rabid overapplication, rather than the cologne itself.  I will probably never know, as I still have Scent PTSD from the sillage – every dance club choking the life out of me with that scent) –  it wasn’t until Grey Flannel (1975 by Geoffrey Beene) came onto my scene that I found a men’s cologne that I both appreciated on men – and on myself.   Looking at the notes list on Fragrantica I can definitely see why.   It’s a cornucopia of a whole LOTTA lotta of Stuff I Like, with an herbal base and some roses and woody notes thrown in – it’s definitely a scent of its era.  And the Jovan for Men that I scored, while not having the persack same notes (nor not nearly as many), shares a lot of the same scent profile as Grey Flannel – and it’s definitely representative of the era, as well.  I’ve been wearing the JfM for the bulk of this week, in cool weather and hot, atop a host of slightly scented creams as well as unscented (honey.  you will NEVER find my skin un-creamed)… no matter what, it ends up drying down to a really seductive skin-scent, like when you come across a really attractive man, sleeves rolled up, with sunkissed skin that has  just a bit of a sheen, but his shirt still has a hint of not overwhelming fabric softener  (Lordt.  I really am a ravening beast. …  obviously;-).  But it’s also working on me – not only am I enjoying it, I’ve gotten at least 3 compliments – not “I like your perfume” – rather ‘wow.  you smell great!‘.  (insert shrug emoji).

jovan and the disco yoga pants!

However – for a scent that is called ‘Musk’ – it’s not really ‘musky’.  And the musk in the list of notes doesn’t come in until the bottom of the base.  But maybe that’s the point -it’s not supposed to smell like musk ??? – maybe it’s supposed to evoke the primal feeling you get when smelling something good, clean and skin-scenty ?  I feel like this one is one that very closely amplifies ones natural musks – if that’s even possible?  This is a bit of uncharted territory for me, as I am Quing of BWFs and their ilk and haven’t really explored the musky perfumes all that much.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Let me know if you’ve tried this, what you think of it,  your favorite musks/skin scents, etc etc… Surrender to Chance has several iterations and I’ll pull a winner and send out some Jovan Musk goodies for you to try.

* I’m calling it ‘vintage’ because it looks old and smells like it did back in the late 70s – there is a way to batch-code this but! Jovan reuses their codes every 14 years, so it could be 14 years old or 28 years or 114 years.  Who knows?  I do know that it smells GREAT!