Musk? Ergh. I'm reversing; I like it less and less. As a background touch for other notes, I can still deal with it, or even appreciate it. But I have less and less tolerance for musk-dominated fragrances. Lorenzo Villoresi Musk is growing on me. I liked Le Labo Ambrette 9. But that's about it.
I suspect that it's the laundry detergent association. To me, most musks smell like a box of laundry soap powder. A dusty box, in my mother's dark basement laundry room, the one that floods in a heavy rain.
In memory, I grab the sticky-handled plastic scoop, scoop some out with my face screwed up to avoid breathing any of the disturbed powder, and dump it on the clothes. Some drifts to the mounting of the drum, where it has to be wiped off if I don't want it to stay and get sticky-dirty. And I always do breathe some in, and my sinuses punish me for a few hours afterward.
Not a great vision for a perfume. When the primary information coming from a perfume is, "Ack! You breathed some!", that's just not good.
All of which is to explain why it's not Kiehl's fault that I don't like their musk. It's a perfectly nice, well-behaved, soft, faintly animalic musk. It's not too laundry-room. I might use it for layering, if something else seems to need a musky touch. But I won't be wearing it.
Review Roundup: Basenotes and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Fragrantica and The Scented Salamander and Legerdenez and PereDePierre.
Photo: By Dysprosia. Wikimedia Commons.
