White Musk

Clean, soft and freshly washed, like warm skin under cotton.

“White musk” is not a natural raw material but a scent image: clean, soft musk notes composed from synthetic molecules. The original musk came from a gland of the musk deer – today these animals are internationally protected.

White musk is made in the laboratory. Typical building blocks are polycyclic musks such as Galaxolide and macrocyclic ones such as Habanolide or ethylene brassylate. Perfumers blend several of them, because each molecule shows a different facet – and because not every nose perceives every molecule equally well.

White musk is the scent of fresh laundry on warm skin: clean, soft, intimate. In our range it sits in the base of all 108 fragrances that contain it. It keeps a scent on the skin for a long time and makes it rounder and more intimate.

Musk, clean and skin-close.

In our fragrances, it often appears alongside Vanilla, bergamot, sandalwood, rose, lily of the valley, orange, blackcurrant.

The first synthetic musk was discovered almost by chance in 1888: while experimenting with explosives, the chemist Albert Baur came across a molecule that smelled of musk. In the 1960s Galaxolide followed – the material that defined the clean, “white” musk.

• Natural musk was coveted for centuries – over the 20th century it was gradually replaced by synthetic musks.
• The first synthetic musk was discovered by chance in 1888 during experiments with explosives.
• Some people cannot smell certain musk molecules at all – this innate “musk blindness” is well documented.

One of its best-known building blocks is Galaxolide (C₁₈H₂₆O), a polycyclic musk discovered at IFF in the 1960s.