Egyptian Musk

There is something so incredibly comforting about Musk in perfumery. This, to me, is the ideal form. I discovered Nemat's Egyptian Musk in my local Whole Foods (can that sound any worse?). Since day one, it's been a love affair. And though I've tried to move on, I keep coming back for more. How does it smell? It smells archaic - but in a venerable way. Something royal. The musk is complex and dense. Attars tend to have the latter quality, but not necessarily the former. This is more than a simple, fresh, clean, musk. This has character and distinctness. Upon application, I get notes of amber, dank patchouli, and an almost camphorous bottom. All I can say is, it's glorious. As with most oils, the scent is linear and stays close to skin, but presents with impressive projection for an attar. Longevity is also good. Solidly unisex. I can't help but feel it's become the "old reliable" in my collection, as it's simply perfect in so many ways. Want to smell clean, but not boring? Wear it on it's own. Want to boost other fragrances? Layer this first and spray over it. It only compliments whatever you combine it with. Layer this with Molecule 01 and people will be all over you. Highly recommended and well worth it's humble price tag.

Oils usually wear pretty linear on me, whether they be high end, niche or grocery store chic, linearity is the theme. But this Egyptian musk is a roller coaster, and I’ll try to describe the different stages to help people decide whether to buy it or not since it’s hard to find (by the way Nemat is sold at Follow your Heart in the San Fernando Valley-the whole line). The first thing you need to know is that the opening is sharp and pungent, almost aggressive with what appears to be aldehydes and a nose piercing powder that can be uncomfortable, but fear not, let it sit for 10-20 minutes and you get a powdery floral that’s better than the opening but it’s not your final destination. Another 10 minutes and the Egyptian musk that can be found in the Narciso Rodriguez line emerges, way more powerful than Narciso’s oil, this is more like the pink edp with even more musk. After several hours you get a sweaty clean white musk that’s light but detectable. Recommended for musk fiends only.

Nemat's Egyptian Musk is a really interesting scent -- in a good way! To my nose, it doesn't resemble the musk in either SJP Lovely (which I don't especially like) or NR For Her (which I love). Rather, this musk has almost a mineral-ly, metallic quality, closer to the musk in Reminiscence Patchouli Blanc -- itself a really interesting fragrance. Egyptian Musk is the kind of musk you find in the beautiful, insanely inexpensive, and decidedly unisex Paul Sebastian Fine Cologne or in the rich 1932 classic, Tabu, by Dana. Egyptian Musk is neither a clean, white laundry musk, nor is it a dirty, animalic musk; instead, it's a musk redolent of the warm ground and concrete -- petrichor? -- when the summer rain starts falling late in the afternoon. It's a really nice, warm, powdery, non-floral, un-sweet musk that I have really come to appreciate. <3

This perfume oil is a great value not to mention that it smells terrific, sort of like incense and musk. Some of the Nemat oils take a while to macerate but this perfume smells strong right away. It's good for layering or wearing solo and lasts a decent amount of time for an oil. The scent sits close to the skin and it better for days when you want a low-key scent. This would be good for a signature as it's special without being too showy. This is one of the more unisex or universal Egyptian Musks I feel. It would be just as good on a man. If you like EM, I highly suggest you give this one a try. It's really a standout.

I’m obsessed, it smells sweet, clean, warm, musky. Does smell like incense but I like the smell of this way more than incense. Sits close to the skin as with any oil. It’s indescribable, the citrus isn’t screechy at all, the fresh clean notes balance out the warm musk perfectly. Definitely a more feminine scent due to how sweet it is. It smells like fresh laundry but with a distinct warmth, earthiness & groundedness. Well blended in perfect harmony. I wear this all the time, even to bed. Very inoffensive and pleasant scent overall, I could never get tired of this smell. 9.5/10

Lovely & earthy musk. Slightly 'dirty' in the sense that it smells kinda human, which I love, but certainly not in an offensive way. It gives patchouli/ incense/ new age shop, so I can see why people would call this a hippie scent. I find it very sexy. The dry down is more powdery and clean than the opening. I absolutely drenched myself in this during a sweaty solo roadtrip one summer careening down the 101 through Redwood National Park and the Southern Oregon Coast blasting Liz Phair, so I have very fond memories.

Smell like grandma AND grandpa, you can absolutely tell this came out in the 90s and I love it. It’s like a dark clean citronella almost when I smell it out the bottle. I usually wear stuff I’d like as an incense, this is in the same genre as blunt effects dark kush in my opinion. This just might be the “weirdest” one you can find in an ulta/sephora/whatever. I actually don’t think it’s floral at all, on me at least it’s like aftershave mixed with a metaphysical store.

I adore this scent! I find it addicting, it is sweet, clean, and such a lovely musky scent. Funnily enough I really only smelled the lemony note when I was sick, otherwise this is somewhat marshmallowy sweet on me while still being clean and inoffensive. I don’t get the earthier layers some mention but that may be due to my overall lack of fragrance experience. I love this fragrance and cannot recommend it enough for its insane value and addictive scent

I've been wearing this for months and my bottle is still half or 3/4 full. You only need a drop on pulse points and it lasts and lasts. It's strong stuff and smells high quality. It's my favorite Egyptian Musk. I like it much better than Kuumba Made's. On my skin, it's slightly sweet (I turn anything sweet), powdery, spicy and floral. I'm so glad this has been added on here! Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5/5 Hearts

i smelled this in a muggy ulta and immediately knew i had to have it. started off as dark and overpowered by saffron. when it settled down is when the absurdity came on. it smelt like sweat badly concealed by a powder scented deodorant. an old fur rug stained by beer. i have no idea what's wrong with my skin or my nose, but this smells amazingly off putting. a good scent for the strange girls.

My favorite go-to perfume oil for the summer. To me, it smells almost sweet and flowery and like what most people said, incense, very mysterious, clean, and feminine. I like to wear it on top of other more fresh or musky smells and I like to consider this as my signature scent.

My bestie gave me a little decant of her abdul kareem egyptian musk oil and I have been chasing that high since!! This one is the highest quality oil I have found but not as warm as the famous one bought in the 90s. Still SUCH a clean scent and lasts 2 or 3 hours on me

Lovely! Light, airy, powerful musk with vanilla undertones. It’s great for the price. So fresh you can wear in heat of summer. I apply to the back of my hands and can’t get enough of the scent bubble that creates. Great bedtime scent - such goodness!

I love this so much! I can't stop slathering it on my wrists & forearms. It does smell like incense, as another reviewer described, but I'm ok with that. It lasts & lasts on my skin, and I've been wearing it to bed, which soothes me.

I adore this one! Incensey, soap and musk. It's like a cloud of softness around you. It doesn't shout, but it stays with you all day. Smells good when you put a little in your hair. I prefer this over all the other skin scents.

this is my ultimate clean go-to scent- it's fresh and bright without being offensive. makes me feel like i'm wrapped in warm laundry right out of the dryer in the best way possible. so comforting!

The most wearable musk ever! Oddly enough this is my most complimented fragrance, it projects very well especially in the heat. It's sweet, warm, and perfectly simple.

Instantly fell in love! Clean, fresh, and sophisticated smell I feel comfortable wearing in professional environments. Inoffensive but still has personality.

Instant love upon first sniff. Layered it today with White Musk by the same brand. Clean and cuddly skin scent that will project more than you realize.

The review below me is exactly how I would describe this perfume. Most definitely smells like incense! I adore this! Has a comforting smell to it. :-)

I tried this at whole foods, and i regret not buying it, The best clean non-sopay white musk. I wish if it was in a spray bottle but it's an oil.

An excellent musk with citrus and powdery undertones. If you love musk this is a good basic one. Great for layering or on its own.

Layering this with either woody or incense fragrances is perfection

This scent wears in a very spicy, patchouli-like way on my skin. It's not so much a clean scent as it is a spicy, incensey scent to me. It is my most "dirty" perfume scent as well as my least sweet scent, and I'm shocked that there are no spice, woods, or patchouli notes listed here!! I would probably be upset if I blind-bought this based on the notes on this page alone, so I recommend smelling in store before purchasing. Also test it on your skin to see if it works with your skin chemistry. All of this isn't to say it smells bad. It smells very unique and interesting compared to my usual fragrances, which I appreciate. Someone else mentioned like an Earthbound store, which I'd agree with. I like it, but not love. My boyfriend really likes this on me. It's definitely a unisex scent. Glad I got the rollerball instead of the bottle. 7.5/10, it's fun and mysterious for some days, but not a signature scent and not exactly office appropriate for me.

This does not smell like the Egyptian musk I’m familiar with, but Nemat is an Indian brand while the attar of Egyptian Musk I used to get from Muslim street vendors in NYC is Arabian. This is more of a clean synthetic musk—sharp and almost soapy.......perhaps even a bit headache inducing — whereas the Egyptian Musk attar is warm, ambery , and ever so slightly sweet. I think I like this, I just have to reset my expectations to truly appreciate it, as I was expecting a completely different profile. This smells like something from Clean( the perfume brand), or at least would layer well with one of their soapy , aldehydic, or laundry scents.

I really like this, and I almost love it but I think I'm partial to Egyptian Goddess. EG is more femininely, densely musky, but EM here is more of a general unisex musk. However...that being said, this is perfectly balanced and really beautiful. It's truly hard to fathom how something so nice can cost so little! It isn't quite soapy, but it's still slightly shower-y, as if you stepped out of the shower and your skin is really clean and lightly floral. Hard to describe. There's almost something sandalwoody, but it's toned down, and yes, "powdery". Yet, not fusty. It's really quite good and I see why this has had devout wearers since 1991!

I wore SJP’s Lovely in the 1990s and now, smelling Nemat’s Egyptian Oil, I can absolutely smell the relation between them. Egyptian oil has the same soft, sheer, woody-powdery haze that was so beautiful about Lovely. It’s not bold or groundbreaking, but that’s the point. Egyptian oil is for when you just want to smell good in an uncomplicated way.

I bought this scent right before a month-long trip to Italy in May and wore it every day while I was there. I found it slightly nauseating after long, hot days but I believe this scent would be more enjoyable in the fall or at night, away from the heat. It sometimes felt like I was suffocating in the musk and desperately wanted something floral.

I see another reviewer has said how great of a 'bedtime' scent this is. It really is so lovely to put on after a shower—it's a warm, slightly sweet, slightly incense-y skin-scent that's downright addictive to me. I have both this and Amber (the latter of which I wish I could just inject right into my bloodstream. It's so *good*.)

to be honest, i feel like i couldnt smell the other musk scents --- it might've just been me. but when i tried egyptian musk, it was the only one that i could smell. honestly, a pretty addicting scent. smells like a warm hug between close friends. good for any occasion --- layered or not

I like it, but it doesn't smell like traditional Egyptian Musk. Gives me a representation of the smell of old school TV glow (that burst of electricity/static when turning on old TVs) and the cold, fresh outdoors. Slightly powdery. Definitely musky. A clean musk.

This is a scent where it can be hard to describe for me, at best I can say an area in a store that sells incense, but I just get memory flashbacks when I smell this. It smells like people/places ive been around when I was younger but cant pinpoint what.

Makes me think of fresh towels at a swanky spa. Very clean-linen-y type of scent. I sometimes enjoy on its own, particularly as a bedtime or wind-down scent, but I prefer it layered with something.

I love the Egyptian musk in this but the powdery synthetic white musk is unnecessary and clashes in my opinion. I am not picking up an Egyptian musk fragrance to smell like detergent.

This and the himalayan musk both smell similar to me. Personally, they remind me of Earthbound in the mall. It’s a gorgeous smell

Soapy and clean, reminds me of Narciso Rodriguez for Her but less sharpness.

Definitely the most clean & soapy out of all the Nemat oils I’ve tried.

Very strong musky tones. Kind of aquatic and reminds me of summer.

I've had this for a little over a year and while I like it enough to finish my rollerball, I'm not sure I like it enough to repurchase. It opens a bit sharp and fizzy with either a lemon or bergamot before evolving into a slightly powdery, yet slightly earthy musk. I'm getting either frankincense or patchouli in the drydown, which makes it a bit more unisex/ masculine and probably why I feel like I can't commit to another bottle. I have Narciso For Her and the Abdul Kareem Egyptian Musk (not on the Fragrantica site, but a much cleaner, slightly woody/ laundry-type musk) in my collection, and these are a better fit for me. This is not a bad scent by any means, but I'm also not swooning over it.

I know Egyptian Musk is usually a blend of a lot of different notes including frankincense and patchouli, but some are less earthy and spicy than others. I found this one to be very heavy on the patchouli on my skin and I didn't like it until it eventually dried down to more of a cleaner musk with a bit of spice. I prefer the Kuumba Made Egyptian Musk over this one, personally, but I think this might be a closer representation to a real Egyptian Musk attar. The roll on I have that I bought in store has a yellow color to the oil that's similar to the photo above and is not clear.

sampled this in an ulta store on my wrist because it smelled nice right out of the bottle, but after a bit, it turned a little sour? kind of like sweat and b/o, which could be the animalic note that people describe as "hugging a friend." i see the appeal in this type of scent, but it got a little overwhelming for me personally. I don't smell any citrus notes, but the powder does kind of come through in a soft way. i will say, this does last pretty long and is rather strong, and i can still smell the scent on my wrist after washing it off with soap.

smelled this on a client at my job this summer & thought it was great so ofc i snatched it when i saw it at ulta yesterday. spent all afternoon/evening slathering it on and getting high on my own supply & was totally over the moon BUT... this morning i put more on before some volunteer work & i don't know WHAT happened to me or the oil overnight but the smell of pee LEAPED out on my drive over & made me nuts for the next 3-4 hours. now it's all i can smell when i unscrew the lid this is so SAD 😭😭😭

I like it and i dislike it at the same time It’s definitely more complex than The Body Shop’s Musk, which I appreciate but it is a bit strong. To me it has a nostalgic, almost grandma-like quality to it, not in a bad or unpleasant way, just a bit old-fashioned, like something from another era. I could enjoy it on someone else, like my mom, but it doesn’t quite feel like me. couldn't bring myself to wear it for a long time, it's just a bit too powdery for me, so i can't speak to its longevity.

Very light scent! but beware, if you are in the heat this scent becomes very strong and can give you a headache. I would recommend this oil for an older crowd like women in their 40s-50s. Smells like clean laundry and flowers even though there is no floral notes.

Very clean, fabric softener type musk scent.

Funny that this showed up on here today because I just sampled this today for the second time. For a hot minute I enjoyed this one, but it quickly goes bad. This is a faint musk and subtle spice dominated by a heavy soapiness that takes over more and more until it crushes any of the other notes. It smells like a laundry detergent or cleaning product... in a bad way. Definitely the worst out of all of the Egyptian Musk/Goddess perfume oils I've sampled. It does seem that all of the most popular Egyptian Musk/Goddess scents have all been watered down, cheapened and reformulated, so this may just be another victim of reformulation as well. I've learned the hard way with this brand that unfortunately you have to test the bottle that you are buying instead of relying on the sample. More often than not, the samples smell very different - usually much stronger, richer and better than the bottles for sale. For example, the Egyptian Musk sample in the sample bottle was an amber color and smelled amazing. I would have easily bought it, but the bottles for sale had a clear oil and smelled as described above (same situation with Nag Champa and Arabian Wood) I don't know what the reasoning for this is, but it's just something to be aware of.

A subpar recreation of the Egyptian musk type of fragrances. I’m not a fan, it has the most prominent powder notes of all Egyptian musks that I’ve tried. It’s just not very balanced.

This comes labeled from the maker as having floral notes (lily of the valley). I don’t know why that isn’t mentioned on here. It is an overpowering floral scent to me, very mature.

I hate to be that person, but this is the worst musk I've ever smelled, or tried to smell. It smells like nothing. Their Vanilla Musk is the same way. I put it on, I sniffed, and I smelled basic air. If you want a musk, go get a real Middle-Eastern musk. There are plenty of amazing and fragrant musks in the world, don't let this one be the reason you waste your money.

to me this smells like straight up suntan lotion. it also smells like yankee Candle "Sun and Sand" room freshener, which is also straight up coppertone suntan oil. it's interesting for a few minutes, but I don't want to smell like this all day.