A Little about Musks and Perfumery

Originally there were only exactly two natural sources. By far the best musk since antiquity came from a tiny deer Moschus moschiferus, small, compact deer, family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla). A shy animal, the mini-deer lives in mountainous regions from Siberia to the Himalayas. It has large ears, a very short tail, no antlers and, unlike all other deer, a gall bladder. Grayish brown, with long, coarse, brittle hair, the musk deer stands 50–60 cm or 20–24 inches. The male has two little tusks. The musk gland is found only in adult males. It lies in a sac located between the genitals and the umbilicus or navel, and its secretions are most likely used to attract mates. The gland exudes a scent so valuable that these diminutive creatures are nearly at the point of extinction. They are now protected, but heavily poached none the less.

The musk gland produces a number of closely related large ringed molecules, mainly muscone. It seems the main factor in producing the odor is a large ring of carbon atoms, like a big floppy doughnut. Muscone is a large ring-shaped ketone. Other macroring molecules can have a similar odor, such as double ester rings and some lactones, which are by definition rings. The existence and molecular structure of muscone was made clear in 1923 by the later Nobel Prize winner Leopold Ruzicka

The one and only other natural source of this special aroma comes from a little black seed shaped like a miniature bean. It's called ambrette seed and is the product of a flower in the hibiscus family. The East Indians have used it for centuries to flavor their coffee. The benefactor in this case is a large-ringed lactone, ambrettolide. It coexists with a lot of fatty acids and nutty flavorants. The lactone is quite hard to separate, so the resulting aroma falls far short of the very costly animal product. Ambrette seed is the only source of "musk" available to "natural" perfumers ...unless they don't mind carving up the diminutive musk deer. Nowadays, pure synthetically produced ambrettolide is a very highly valued musk ingredient in perfumery.

In the last two decades of the 19th century, actually the real beginning of the age of organic chemistry, a German scientist, Albert Baur was studying organic "nitro" compounds looking for new and more effective explosives and stumbled on a nitro-compound that curiously mimicked the velvety-sweet, enveloping smell of musk. It became known as Musk Baur and within a couple short years a whole series of related so-called "nitromusks" were invented which changed 20th century perfumery radically.

From about 1890 until approximately 1990 nitromusks reigned supreme. In the first half of the twentieth century natural musk was still sparingly used, but it became more and more supplanted by the nitros which were dirt cheap and easy to manufacture.

From the twenties through the forties the structure of natural musks gradually became elucidated and synthesized, but in the beginning decades the processes used were tedious and inefficient making these mostly nature-identical chemicals nearly as expensive as natural musk. But the price of the natural material kept climbing, leading to more and cheaper synthesis procedures which today have resulted in a wide range of musk replacements, many of which are quite beautiful, even if they mostly still lack the side-note of "animal down-and-dirtiness" or "vibrancy" the original source posesses.

The Nitromusks Become Dinosaurs.

Environmentalists got on the nitromusks' case, perhaps in the mid 80's. Musk ketone, the last hold-out, is not toxic as far as I know (although some related nitromusks were supposedly shown to be somewhat neuro-toxic. However, none of the nitromusks are biodegradable. I've never read of any particular harm caused by them, but they were accumulating steadily in lakes and rivers. Albeit hardly from personal fragrances. Consumption for these is miniscule by comparison; musks are used in gigantic amounts in floor cleaning products, laundry detergents, soaps, lotions and numerous other industrial products that require huge volumes. I personally don't know if today's much-used Galaxolide or Tonalide break down any better. One day the environmentalists may zero in on these and others as well.

I would wager that Galaxolide along with Tonalide, have become the main industrial replacements for the nitromusks. Nitromusks are no longer manufactured outside of China and, I believe, India.

As a perfumer, I keep musk ketone on my workbench and have absolutely no qualms about using it. In my opinion, a person dropping one cigarette butt into a sidewalk gutter is far more polluting than all the musk ketone I could ever use. Plastic tampon applicators litter the beaches here in Los Angeles, miles from the sewage processing plants. Birth control hormones and antidepressants taint water in most cities. Nitromusks were used for over a hundred years, so I don't concern myself with any toxic effects. Being a Baby Boomer, all the Ivory Soap I was bathed in as a toddler was loaded with it, shampoos and acne medicines as a teenager... and eventually I and everyone else splashed it on in "Jade East" or "English Leather" all through college.

IFRA, the fragrance industry's own self-regulatory body, currently recommends drastically reducing and eliminating musk ketone in the finished product. I'm sure it's purely arbitrary and probably totally unfair compared to a lot of other chemicals in use. But someone decided to finish off the nitromusk industry and the manufacture of it. A reduced amount still has some effect on a fragrance's signature, but has made some other famous fragrances unreproducible. Major makers of several older and still popular fragrances promise to remove all nitromusk, but continue to out.