Siberian Musk

Note Profile

Animal

About

Raw deer musk from Moschus moschiferus, animalic not clean

Scent Profile

Animalic is the one thing every source agrees on. Sibermusk calls the raw grains 'strong animal and potent'. Kafkaesque describes 'dark, faintly earthy, vaguely animal-like, heated muskiness' and 'a quiet streak of something urinous (similar to civet in its aroma)'. Clean_musk is the musk character proper, the soft skin-like body that appears once the material is diluted; it sits high because this repository uses clean_musk as the musk axis for animal musks too, with Civet and Civettone. Leather comes from the 'musky velvet' and 'suede-like' drydown Kafkaesque names. Dry_woody is the retailer Oud and Musk's 'characteristic woody smell', which is the single descriptor that vendor leads with. Earthy is Kafkaesque's 'faintly earthy'. Below the line, sweet_vanillic and fruity carry the warm-sweet and 'almost fruity' readings that two vendors give and the perfume reviewer does not, and powdery the ground-grain softness.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~44h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather

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

Origin

Siberian musk is the dried glandular secretion of the male Siberian musk deer, Moschus moschiferus, sold as grains or as a tincture of them. It is the animal-sourced original that the whole modern musk category is named after. Trade in it is CITES-restricted, so none of the four big houses publishes a specification for it, and almost every perfume that lists 'musk' today means a synthetic. Vendors report that the odour changes with how the pod is handled: Sibermusk states that 'depending on the state of the musk (dry or wet), it can give completely different shades. From soft to very animal.'

Usage in Perfumery

A base note and a fixative, used as a dilute tincture at trace level. Parfumo records 19 mentions across 6 brands with no Fragrantica page, which is the usage pattern of a niche and attar-adjacent material rather than a mainstream one. The best-documented fine-fragrance use is Areej Le Dore's Siberian Musk.