Musk

tldr: you TOO can purchase this iconic and wonderful scent for 7 euros and be complimented! got the edp (gold cap orange juice) at the local drugstore and holy shit is this a winner? this scent brings me back to days with my grandmothers and my grand aunts and my godmothers. growing up on the cusp of 90s and 2000s, the iconic women in my life all seemed to have clean and fresh musks following them along, with warm gourmands a close second (thanks mom!). so growing up, little ol me would be sniffing something fresh and gorgeous following the gaggle of lawyers, socialites, teachers, and businesswomen that would all rally together to look after me while my powerhouse mom would be out working, and that has shaped my whole life, especially now as I’ve transitioned. I saw this at the drugstore weeks ago, got it (“it’s only 7 euros I literally do not need pumpkin spice right now” I said) and sprayed it. suddenly, clear as day, it felt like I unlocked the next chapter of being a lady. the scent was clean, soapy, fresh, but WARM AND COZY. in it I can detect hints of whatever jasmine and neroli and bergamot were in there, but not in the way most perfumes used them. they were soapy, clean, like hotel room soap dispensers and fancy mandarin hotel bathrooms after having drinks at the bar. but the scent itself was just clean, fresh, and human. and strangely sweet, but not saccharinely sweet. just like a warm, almost essence of caramel cloud. I sprayed it on while wearing a hoodie and it made me want to burrow up and smile wistfully despite not having someone to cuddle with. it was that memory-inducing. I had just received a longchamp bag secondhand too before buying this so it felt like the mom torch was being passed on to moi. but, to be honest, fades away kind of quickly? which I don’t know if it’s a con tbh it just goes down to a clean musk with a bit of bite to it. I sweat easily, and I sprayed it behind my knees; after sitting for a while, I curiously swiped at that spot, finding it slightly sweaty, and sniffed (which is I think probably the worst mental image for people reading this): the musk went down to how yaoi manga authors use “musky”, very lived in and bitingly sweaty but in a good way. it’s definitely a skin scent, with projection ranging from decent (smelling it from my shoulders and neck and maybe an arm whiff) to skintimate (skin scent type shit) which I do not mind at all; if I wanted to bowl people over with musk I’ll do another perfume (maybe extreme musk by Louis Varel or, god pray for everybody around me, musk by Alyssa ashley), but jovan does it nice and cozy. perfect for class, going out for coffee, and slinking around in soft loungewear. spray it on your lingerie, its a banger. final thoughts: the memories this perfume brings feels good feels organic. for 7 euros this is a steal. for a scent that brings me back to both 90s and 70s, it is surprisingly on par with modern musks. mainstay.

I've worn Jovan Musk for so many years or rather decades! It is a must-smell for any musk lover and a staple in any perfume collector's repertoire. Perhaps it isn't the earth-shaking newest and greatest fragrance but it's a classic that deserves it's place in perfumery. I have always worn the oil form and in the last several years I have begun to love and appreciate the cologne concentrate. Yesterday I was hoping to receive some fragrance samples in the mail so I didn't want to wear an actual "perfume." I decided on Jovan Musk for after my shower. The samples came later in the day and I found some new things I really love. I just dabbed a couple things on my wrists. Fast forward to this morning and while sitting with my coffee and the news I keep smelling lovely sort of woody notes, so I keep smelling my shirt thinking hmmm...Wild Woods? Stash? what is that? While those are both awesome it's not those. It's the Jovan Musk! The other samples were not sprayed but dabbed on and not across my midsection which is what my shirt was resting on. That is where the Jovan Musk was and it's beautiful. I do not get animalic or dirty vibes off this and definitely not J&J baby shampoo. Maybe we smell what our brain is actually looking for? I so often go off in pursuit of the "next big thing" forgetting the gems sitting right there in my collection. Jovan Musk sells for a few dollars and is available everywhere. I'll always have this and back ups as well in both oil and cologne spray. Great for layering, great for an understated gorgeous skin scent. Dime store fragrance...yes. Elegant and classy? Absolutely! Years ago a business woman friend told me, upon my asking that she wears Jovan Musk. This is someone who always looks polished and beautiful and has always embodied professionalism in her field. That moment really established in my mind how classy a simple fragrance like Jovan Musk can be! It's a no-brainer! Just buy it! Edit: I keep reading comments that this smells like nothing or it has no longevity. My new-stock JM oil seems to go on and on. I am still smelling the scent from a couple of dabs on my wrist last evening and it's now mid-morning. It's such a lovely perfume and I will always make sure I have plenty on hand and back-ups of both this and the White Musk for women version.

My second review of this fragrance! Of all the bottles of perfume I own Jovan Musk for women is still one scent that I always love to smell the most. Always a compliment-getter. This frugal minded fragrance is in my top five. I have several bottles of the spray. I like the bottle I have like in the above photo just aesthetically and mine is half full. Not sure if they still make that one. I have the tall glass bottle with the small gold lid as well and the orange capped bottle. I love them all scent wise. I keep all my perfumes in storage in the closet so it really doesn't matter. In regard to the oil, I just opened another new bottle of the oil. I have about three backups of oil. When I first dabbed it, I couldn't smell it much but then I had just sprayed the cologne concentrate as well. My nose was overloaded maybe. Anyway the more times I've opened the bottle of oil it has darkened in color and taken on more fragrance. Oxidation? Seems strange that it happened so quickly but I'd say give it time and keep opening the bottle. My last oil thickened considerably as the level of oil depleted. I never rub the stick on my arm, I always let the perfume oil drip off the wand onto my forearm. Many fragrances improve with use and time. I'm still able to smell it on my arm after rubbing it on last evening. I've noticed that sometimes the Jovan Musk Oil doesn't have a lot of scent when I first apply it but the next morning it is the most gorgeous skin scent I could ever ask for.

Thank you for all those very kind fragrantica members who helped me to find a soft, inoffensive yet unique and chic everyday perfume. There were many suggestions but the two that are available in my country and are also very affordable were Jovan Musk and JOvan White Musk. I just received them (both in the 96 ml bottle, Musk is Cologne Concentrate SPray and White Musk in Cologne Spray) today and I'm testing Musk right now. First of all, this is a very familiar scent for me and I suppose it's the same for almost everyone. When I was a little girl I got a small roll-on bottle of Avon's Soft Musk that I liked a lot, and Jovan Musk reminds me on that. THis is a very subtle, soft, powdery, slightly flowery smell, it's a little bit on the sweet side but not overwhelmingly so, I feel fresh, polished and organized while weróaring it the way as I had put a luxurious body lotion on. I can get only beautiful whiffs of it whenever I move but it doesn't have a great sillage to offend anyone. Sexy? It's hard to tell. Musk must be sexy in a way, as nature created it, of course. But in this form, on a woman's skin it is not sexy in term of erotics, in my humble opinion. HOwever, it may be sexy in the natural, uncomplicated and overly feminine way, it really is. I love it so far and I'm planning to buy the perfume oil, as well.

Why isn't this the potent musk you remember? Two words: Nitro Musk! Banned in the US since 1979 they were in most if not all of the old musk oils. Contrary to what some believe "real" musk hasn't been used in most mainstream fragrance for almost 100 years! Nitro-musks were once used extensively in perfumery and are now largely prohibited in many countries because they can't be fully cleaned out by sewage treatment plants and accumulate in fish and such. The kicker is that there is no conclusive proof that they're actually harmful. Polycyclic musks are mostly used in fragrance and londry products these days. They far inferior in strength, longevity and odor to the nitro musks. Macrocyclic musks are also not a good replacement for nitro musks. Although they closely resemble the true scent of real deer (Tonkin) musk, half the human population are anosmic to it. That means there is 50% chance you can't smell it! EVER! So fragrance companies use several musk chemicals in the hopes that you'll smell atleast one! So now you know why fragrance can smell so much different between people. Alicyclic musks I don't know too much about, their sort of new but from what I've heard they are also no match for nitro musks.