Muscenone

Note Profile

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About

Muscenone is Firmenich's macrocyclic musk ketone, a 15-membered unsaturated ring closely related to natural muscone. It is warm, powdery and openly animalic, described as the most animal-like part of deer musk powder, with a metallic edge that keeps it from reading clean. Three sources also give it an orris facet, which is unusual for a musk.

Scent Profile

A powerful, skin-close musk. The musk itself is the dominant impression, soft and radiant and slightly soapy, but it is not a laundry musk: a strong animalic warmth sits inside it, the tonkin-deer end of the register rather than the clean end. Powder is the third pillar, cosmetic and orris-like, with a faint floral tint from that orris facet. On dilution it develops woody notes, and a mineral-metallic edge runs through the whole thing and is what makes it read as alive rather than washed.

ScentWheel

Breadthfocused

EnvelopeBase · ~44h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Floral

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

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ScentArt

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can use this material directly to make Muscenone.

Muscenone delta

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use this material, or something else.

Origin

Fully synthetic. (5E)-3-methylcyclopentadec-5-en-1-one, sold by Firmenich, now dsm-firmenich, as Muscenone and Muscenone Delta, and by IFF as Muscemor. It belongs to the macrocyclic ketone family that Leopold Ruzicka's 1939 Nobel work opened up, and it is the closest common synthetic to muscone in character. Boiling point is measured at 346 to 347 degrees Celsius at 760 mmHg.

Usage in Perfumery

Both a base note and an enhancer, and the dosage decides which. At 0.05 to 0.5 per cent it works as a radiance and blending booster that does not announce itself. Above that it becomes the musk character of the formula.