I Love Layering- Even In The Summer

my kind of layers....yum

I am a bit maverick-y when it comes to perfume. I know- shocking, right? I love masterfully composed exclusive perfumes like Acqua di Parma Profumo and sweet, charming gems from the drugstore like Lady Stetson. Another thing I like to do is layer my perfumes. Some might find this sacrilege but I find some of the most delicious scents have come out of my layering experiments. It is often accidental. I will put on a perfume, then a few hours later reapply as I'm leaving, forgetting which perfume I originally applied. Most of the times, it's a happy accident. 

My scent mood rarely changes dramatically during the day, so instinctively I seem to choose scents that luckily work together. This is another reason I tend to favour simple scents. They are easier to layer! Its not always easy in this age of "a million perfumes that all smell like the same mix of a million synthetic ingredients" but it's easier than you'd think. It's not a new concept to perfume- Jo Malone actually offers layering menus on their website with suggestions of perfumes that work well together.

My layering trick is pretty simple. I try to start with a soft skin scent to work with as a "base note". Soft musks, ambers, and woodsy notes well as base notes. Creamy sweet gourmande perfumes also work well as a base. Scents that melt into the skin and make you have to lean in close to smell are the ones that make good base scents.

Then its time to look for a top note. Yes, I know perfumes are made into 3 notes- top, middle/heart and base, but I find it best to keep things simple when doing this yourself. Top and Base are really the only things you need. As far as light and airy, I tend to favour floral and green notes for the top note, as they compliment a richer base note. The base note is calmed and softened by the airy top, and the top is grounded and enhanced by the richness of the base notes.

Annick Goutal Songes, Musc Bleu, AK Musk, Sisley Eau de Campagne, Sexy Angelic, Etro Heliotrope

Some of my favourite base suggestions:

Egyptian Musk Oil: I love Abdul Kareem and Auric Blends musk oils. They have a clean woodsy note that work as the perfect base for almost any perfume. 

Il Profvmo Musc Bleu: This is the lightest cleanest musk, adds a fresh scrubbed note to any perfume.

Honore Des Pres Sexy Angelic: the soft and sweet notes hug the skin and smell amazing when topped with florals. It adds a yummy aspect to clean scents.

Etro Heliotrope: The powdery sweet floral notes in this soften any scent.

Annick Goutal Songes: This sultry and dark tropical floral adds a sensual sweetness to any perfume.

Sisley Eau de Campagne: This shimmering green shower of a perfume adds a spring shower meets green field of grass note and lightens any scent.

YSL Y, Creed  Virgin Island Water, AG La Violette, L'Artisan La Chasse aux Papillons, Floris, Guerlain

These work wonderfully when worn as top notes:

Floris Night Scented Jasmine: simple sweet and floral, this one is just gorgeous with a musk base. It becomes positively dangerous when layered with Annick Goutal Songes.

L'Artisan La Chasse Aux Papillons: Another simple summery floral, I love this one with Sexy Angelic as a base for evening.

Annick Goutal La Violette: This simple sweet violet sings like a spring day when worn with Eau de Campagne.

Then some that just work as a top or a base:

YSL "Y": This soapy green floral chypre is so beautifully composed it pretty much works with anything. I love it with a musk. It is basically like being in a shower all day. I have blown my own mind by wearing this one with Chanel Bois des Iles. WOW. This one is still available for a song online. Get it if you don't have it. 

Guerlain Un Air de Samsara: This is basically sandalwood and jasmine with a little mint tea. I use tiny amounts with any floral and adore it.

Creed Virgin Island Water: Layer this with anything that you want to smell beachy and summery.

So, there are basically no rules for this kind of stuff. As I type this I am already thinking of others....Kiehl's Musk, SMN Gardenia, Keiko Mecheri Jasmine.....I say just experiment, play, and see what works! Often if you think it will work, it does. Our nose knows....

Beautiful & Soft Egyptian Musks: A Musk Love Story

Get me my perfume...and dab it on me...NOW

Musks are funny shape shifting notes in perfume. They don’t smell the same to everyone, and one person’s “Ew that musk is so strong it makes me ill” is another person’s “Musk? What musk? I don’t smell any musk”. There are the 70s musks, that I personally love. Maybe it is the nostalgia for an innocent time with great music & clothes I remember? Whatever it is these are the musks I love. 

I wore Jovan Musk For Women in middle and high school and loved it. I still wear it, and I swear it is a dead ringer for J&J Baby Shampoo. How lovely and innocent is that scent? Clean and simple and so easy to wear. I also wore the sexually charged Jovan Andron too but that was a pheromone perfume. It was very musky, very sexy and I loved it and wish I could find it again.

I wore Coty Wild Musk, in the perfume oil and the eau de toilette. It’s a soft slightly spicy musk scent, and I still own it. It is a warm sexy skin scent yet “Wild” is a bit of a misnomer. If this ad doesn't make you want to try it, then I don't know what will...
                                

I love to wear my musks to bed or on their own when I don’t want more than the softest veil of scent. They project very little and one has to get very close to smell them. I call them cuddly scents and all can be had for under $20 a bottle. What’s not to love? I will add that if someone is close enough to smell them, they always love them.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the wonderful Kiehl’s Musk. It is a little more pricey than the drugstore musks, but if you want a simple elegant musk with a little more oomph this is the one. I find it slightly more animalic (only slightly) than my squeaky clean musks, but Kiehl’s Musk has an honoured place in my collection and gets a lot of wear. I have the eau de toilette but will try the oil next, as I have heard such good things about that version, softer and yet longer lasting than the edt.

I’ve tried many musks, looking for the perfect musk scent. I don’t like musk “heavy” scents that use musk to amplify a perfume and make the existing scent more tenacious. I actually hate them, and those are the ones that make me ill. Bath and Body Works is a notorious offender with these, and I would imagine they use them to amp up their perfumes that are full of cheap thin ingredients that would smell like nothing without a chemical blast to make them LOUD. But again, this is personal, and I liken this scent phenomena to what I can smell vs what someone can smell. As you smell a billion perfumes, you learn to pick out certain notes over time. It’s kind of like wine, you can start out with loud sweet wine but as you learn to pick out certain flavours, you crave more complex delicate flavours. Perfume is the same. Once you learn a note, you cannot un-learn it, or un smell it, even though a year before it might have been invisible to you. So essentially it’s a rabbit hole and once you start sniffing things obsessively like me, you are done for.

There are basically, in perfumes, two kinds of musk scents. I won’t get into the chemistry because synthetic musks, vs natural musks and all the science-y stuff is long winded and complex and in reality there are a tons of musks, not just two. If you would like to read more, try this fantastic post on Bois de Jasmine. But for my purposes I will say there are two kinds: clean, floral & slightly sweet and animalic, oily and dirty. Egyptian musks are bright and sparkly clean, perhaps used in soaps for years which is why they seem so clean. You might also call them white musks. J Lo Glow is famously pretty much a direct copy of J Lo’s favourite musk oil, China Rain, a very soapy green floral musk which likely has a base of Egyptian musk. I actually love it and find it soft and pretty.

I first heard about Abdul Kareem Egyptian Musk oil on the fantastic Make Up Alley fragrance board. The people there are a wealth of knowledge and when I was looking for a clean simple musk, this one was recommended. A little research dug up something kind of neat. AK Egyptian Musk was the perfume of the late Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. I can see this actually, her simple elegant style would suit this simple elegant scent perfectly. Add to this that her favourite designer, Narciso Rodriguez, who also designed her gorgeous wedding dress, used her and her perfume as a muse for his NR For Her perfume. Sadly, whatever musk he used is almost invisible to my nose. I cannot smell it no matter how hard I try, but many love this perfume. I can smell it a little more in NR Essence, but its almost a bit too much in that for me.

So after trying many musk oils, AK is the one I kept coming back to and is now my absolute fave. I adore Abdul Kareem Egyptian Musk, and at $15 for a 15 ml bottle is a great deal for any perfume. I dab it on my pulse points and the nape of my neck and the delicate scent wafts for hours. I have been known to layer it under simpler perfumes to add a soft clean floral note but my favourite way to wear it is alone. If you like musks, you must have this one in your collection. It's the soft preppy perfume for someone who doesn't want to smell perfumey. Perfect! I feel like I'm on my way to the beach in Hyannis Port  already...

Oh, hai John John...

There is only one official seller of this musk online, Charlotte Vale, and anyone else that claims to be selling Abdul Kareem New York musk is selling something else. Don't waste your money. The seller is a lovely person who is quite professional. She sells from her site and at her ebay shop.

Do you enjoy musk scents? What are your faves?