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Up until not too much ago we also extracted musk essence from the anal glands of white belly musk deer. Another interesting thing is oud. It's a resin produced in aquilaria trees when infected with a specific fungus, and it can cost tens of thousands of dollars per kg. I think one of the first famous commercial Perfumes to use it was m7 by ysl, you can read an article on it on fragrantica: https://www.fragrantica.com…
Fortunately for perfumery, ambergris' distinctive odor is principally owed to just two chemicals, ambroxan and ambrinol, both of which are now synthesized.
"Ambergris has been synthesized, but its synthetic versions are not convincing. They lack an indefinable something that is gained only after years spent at sea." Probably a bit like synthesized truffle oil, good enough for most people but lacking richness for a trained delicate palate.
one of my favourite frags 'Kouros' by YSL uses ambergris (or synthesised) shame that over time the formula has changed so much. as per descriptions..it really used to smell like "sweat"/"heavy"...and has changed to much fresher and cleaner.
The Kouros you can buy these days (white instead of metallic shoulders), is heavy on coriander with barely any "musk" and bears little resemblance to the "scent of the gods" of the 80s and 90s. I still have multiple bottles from the 90s which are as good as ever, together with Kouros Fraicheur from the same era which is another Pierre Bourdon masterpiece. YSL perfumes from the 80s and 90s were legendary.
this was very well written. Does anyone known why the adjacent letters "fi" appear as a question mark in my browser throughout the article?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently did a trapping class with my youngest so he could get his license to trap nuisance animals. I was surprised by how pleasant beaver smells. And how DELICIOUS they are. How are they not extinct?
That's a great question, I really have no idea ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_hat ). I'm generally not opposed to hunting, and totally get that beavers are a nuisance to many people, but IMHO they're probably a load-bearing element of many ecologies. I was just looking at 150 acres of swamp supporting a diverse ecosystem today created by a family of beavers
If beavers became more popular as food (and for their fur, again), we would probably make sure we had plenty of them around.
one of my favourite frags 'Kouros' by YSL uses ambergris (or synthesised) shame that over time the formula has changed so much. as per descriptions..it really used to smell like "sweat"/"heavy"...and has changed to much fresher and cleaner.
It's not ambergris that gives Kouros its characteristic pissy notes, but civet (also real oakmoss and strong aldehydes) ingredients all of which they toned down in the early 2000s and then completely removed in 2008 (Loreal era). The Kouros you can buy these days (white instead of metallic shoulders), is heavy on coriander with barely any "musk" and bears little resemblance to the "scent of the gods" of the 80s and 9…
this was very well written. Does anyone known why the adjacent letters "fi" appear as a question mark in my browser throughout the article?