Parfum d'Empire Musc Tonkin Extrait de Parfum

$415⁰⁰ NZD

Size

50ml 1ml Sample

Tonkin musk, produced by a species of Himalayan deer, was one of the most precious ingredients of the perfumers’ palette: it suffused their blends with a sensual aura that fixed and magnified every other essence.

The Chinese have prized it since Antiquity for its aphrodisiac virtues. Its smell was considered so heavenly by Islam it was blended into the mortar of some mosques so that they would exhale it in the sun. It was so penetrating that ships loaded with tea would refuse to carry it for fear it would impregnate their cargo.

No longer used for ethical reasons, natural musk still haunts perfumers since it has never been perfectly replaced. It is to capture this fascinating ghost that Musc Tonkin reinvents it, blending the most opulent raw materials to conjure its myriad facets. Their names don’t matter: like the mysterious charisma of certain people who draw us into their wake, Musc Tonkin should be experienced rather than described.

Vibrant, facetted, surprising, at once nocturnal and solar, this aphrodisiac potion changes on each skin, the better to enhance it. A lick of salt for the taste of skin. A heady floral whiff to remind us that perfume links our bodies to the erotic spells of nature. A liquorous, mulled-fruit burn contrasting with a light, shimmering veil of powder. Unctuous as honey, melting and waxy as the finest leather, the scent conjures living flesh heated by pleasure but also its mossy ink-black depths.

Musc Tonkin, to rediscover the immemorial tradition of love elixirs.

Notes

Musk

Wear profile

Longevity

Intensity

Best for Day · Evening

Season Autumn · Winter

Details

Family	Soft Floral
Country	France
Perfumer	Marc-Antoine Corticchiato
Year	2012
Concentration	Extrait de Parfum

Description

Fragrance Family:
Soft Floral

Notes:
Deer Musk Accord, Hyraceum, Floral Absolutes (Tuberose, Rose, Osmanthus, Narcissus), Beeswax Absolute

Concentration:
Extrait de Parfum

Occasion:
A powerful, addictive, erotic aura. The scent of heated flesh, solar, feline, subtly leathery. This elixir reinvents in a novel, contemporary style, the most suave note in perfumery, worshipped for millennia: Tonkin musk. More than a fragrance, an imprint. For a strong personality, and lovers of animalic notes.

Made in France

Editor's Notes

Musk lovers will readily treasure Musc Tonkin, especially for its boldness, elucidating its animalic theme without hesitation. Its concentration is superb: a sweeping, impression-rich musk to be seen as either a whole or in parts. As a whole, it is an intoxication on the top of the musical stave and the bottom; treble and bass it declares: animal. Bestial though graceful, fluid and intelligent movements as well as evident signs of a muscular strength. The innate contradiction of its animal concept - ferocity and elegance - is embraced in Musc Tonkin.

Knowing that perfumer Marc-Antoine Corticchiato has recreated this tonkin ‘deer’ musk without the use of real animal musk forces a view of the perfume’s constituent parts. Cleverness: in the use of potent flower absolutes, spices, modern musk synthetics, and impressions of leather and moss, powder and fur. In this way, the musk effect ‘disappears’ - Musc Tonkin becomes a tale of a profusion of dirty indolic flowers, turning into an unctuous smudge - honied, deep, potent - lending themselves to a mossy-resinous chypre skeleton. Musk provides the logic that explains the combinations in this fragrance. Aldehydes contribute to the scent’s retro aspect: in its waxiness, fattiness, metal-tinged soapiness, against this animal musk effect, we imagine a creature that grooms themselves with their prickly tongue, fur down to the skin.