Musk Grains

The unassuming, powdery grains in this jar are a now-defunct perfume ingredient called musk. These musk grains are part of a collection of rare raw perfume ingredients that was generously donated to us by Roja Dove, a master perfumer, fragrance historian and storyteller, whose intoxicating bespoke scents use only the finest ingredients.

These grains came from Roja’s own vintage musk pod, which was in turn passed down to him by another perfumer. The musk pod is a small scenting pouch found at the rear of the musk deer, which is endangered and increasingly scarce, but can still be found in parts of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia and eastern Russia. 

Musk deer are solitary animals, and the male deer use this gland to scent their urine and communicate with female musk deer through olfactory messages. Traditionally, musk deer were hunted during mating season and the scenting pouch was removed. The small grains it contains were extracted and macerated in alcohol to create a tincture. Before it is macerated in alcohol, natural musk is said to have a sharp, fatty, urinaceous or clinical smell, but once left to marinade in alcohol it produces a smell that is renowned for being sensual, animalic and an aphrodisiac.

Musk deer have been a protected species since 1979, and the use of musk in perfumes is now internationally prohibited for ethical reasons. Scientists have spent centuries trying to replicate musk’s odour: the first successful synthetic musk was created by Albert Baur in 1888, and Firmenich won a Nobel Prize in 1939 for successfully synthesising this animal note. These synthetic musks have been used successfully and widely in perfumes since the late nineteenth century, but there are now concerns about the health and environmental impacts of some, as they have been found to persist in human fat tissue and in the environment, disrupt hormones and appear in blood and breast milk. Musk notes can also be achieved with botanical materials like ambrette seeds, but these ingredients come at a much higher cost.

Musk has also been used in indigenous medicine systems for centuries: it has historically been used as a sedative to treat epilepsy, hysteria and other nervous disorders, and as a stimulant to cure asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia, for example. Although its use is banned in many countries, poaching and illegal trade of musk pods for medicinal purposes is still rife.