Tri-dimensional Perfumery

My search for the real musk deer scent has carried me to some of the farthest reaches of the Hindu Kush, but at last I found it at its fount.

I fully understand the need for all perfumers for a sustainable musk scent substitute, but the point may rather be about the use of animal notes in our botanical scents, such as Ambergris, Civet, Hyraceum, or Castoreum, to obtain a perfume with a third dimension.

Like the small machines resembling binoculars through which you look in order to watch 3-dimensional photographs, there are only 2 images in the machine, but the vision is truly three-dimensional.

All these animal aromatic substances are pheromone molecules, and they appeal to our nervous system and emotions in ways no vegetable really does. They do not need to be perceptible in a perfume; it is enough for them to be there. I remember a customer who recognized even the slightest hint of rose in any of my compositions because he hated roses due to a traumatic memory from his past. In the same way, I observed that people recognize straight away in my compositions the ingredients that they particularly like or dislike, even if I myself do not even smell them due to their tiny concentration.

I understood that our noses are unconsciously working like gas chromatography machines, and that what we perceive of a perfume may vary widely from person to person. The search for the third dimension of perfumery involves animal scents, but their use is a difficult path, marked by prohibitively high prices, difficulty of obtaining, and ethical dilemmas. So the first step was hair goat tincturing as a sustainable substitute for musk deer, but more can be done.

I myself shall tincture a mutton this week because yesterday I smelled a very nice, powerful one at my neighbor’s. With a liter or two of alcohol and a big pan, I shall rinse it to get his perfume. Mutton’s smell is somehow sweeter than that of a billy goat, and certainly more acceptable to most people than civet. Knowing how civets can blend into marvelous perfumes, there is no reason that horse or mutton should not. Just imagine the amount of mutton absolute that could be produced as a by-product of wool washing in Australia, for instance.