Musk

What it is

Originally a gland from the male musk deer, banned and abandoned decades ago. Every musk in a modern bottle is synthetic, and there are dozens of them, grouped into nitro, polycyclic and macrocyclic families that smell noticeably different from each other.

What it smells like

It behaves less like a smell and more like a volume control, rounding sharp edges and making everything else last. Between a quarter and a third of people cannot detect some individual musks at all, so a musk-heavy fragrance genuinely smells weaker to those people, and no amount of spraying fixes it.

Where it sits

Which layer of the pyramid it is listed in, across every fragrance here that carries it. A base note is one you smell for hours; a top note is usually gone within the first.

What it turns up with

How much more often than the catalogue average. 1.0x would be chance, so these are the things that genuinely travel with it rather than the things that are simply common.

When it is worn

Against the average fragrance here. The line marks that average, so a bar past it means this is worn in that season or setting more than most.

Houses that use it most

Counted across the fragrances here, which reflects what we cover as much as what a house makes.

Rasasi (30), Al Haramain (29), Calvin Klein (24), Lattafa (24), Ajmal (23), Xerjoff (23).