A Project of Passion

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Jardin de Musc.

This perfume was an interesting project, originally MonsieurMadame Oud, who requested the muskiest musk perfume possible. Jardin de Musc slowly evolved to showcase musk in its rawest form, eventually bringing the creaminess and floral aspects of musk to centre stage—elements typically present at low concentrations in a maceration.

Musk, when smelled directly from the pod, can often be off-putting for most people. However, the particular musk we worked with was a 1991 Kashmiri pod (almost impossible to come by these days), which had a chocolate-like aroma, laced with cacao, and very little of the animalic notes found in other varieties. This musk was then macerated in the buttery goodness of some 1990 Mysore sandalwood.

Pairing these two ingredients was almost a yin-yang combination, each feeding into the other—the chocolaty musk notes amplifying the buttery quality of the sandalwood, much like the experience of mixing melted butter and dark chocolate together.

As beautiful as this combination was, it wasn’t enough to simply bottle it and consider the job done. I decided to include other vintage materials—rare ingredients I had been collecting over the years. It wasn’t just about adding whatever I could find, but rather achieving a balance between creaminess and floral notes, keeping true to that essence. So, I incorporated burflower for a rounded profile, gardenia and white rose to introduce lactonic and floral qualities, violet to add a sharp contrast and many more materials, each serving a purpose and a showcase of their individual beauty.

The most important and rarest ingredient of all was the Queen of the Night (Dutchman’s Pipe Cactus - Epiphyllum oxypetalum), a flower so rare and unique that obtaining its oil is incredibly difficult (the odds of winning the lottery might be better). This ingredient was added to mimic the fresh, clean smell of walking through a flower garden at sunrise.

In summary, Jardin de Musc began as a passion project to highlight the beauty of musk, ultimately transforming into an attempt to create a true work of art.