Musc Ravageur (2000) was created by Maurice Roucel for Frederic Malle. Roucel is a perfumer from Symrise and while he has authored many excellent fragrances, Musc Ravageur is the one for which he is most famous.
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Ravishing — An Oriental Fragrance
Given its musky nature, one cannot help note the parallel to another scent he created in the very same year: Eau de Cologne for Helmut Lang. As well as the launch year, the two share some very interesting similarities: both are musk heavy, both involve lavender and both have an intensely sweet note — vanilla with Musc Ravageur and heliotrope with Eau de Cologne. Interestingly Roucel considers Eau de Cologne to be his personal musk masterpiece.
In creating the demonstration formula Ravishing, I wanted to get as close as possible to the original Musk Ravageur (from a study of the results of multiple GCMS analyses) with a few personal tweaks based upon years of loving and wearing the scent myself.
The Musk
Roucel was measured in his selection of musks and so we see a very basic blend of Galaxolide, Tonalide and Exaltolide totalling 31% of the whole. Eschewing the more common fruity and radiant musks (ambrettolide and helvetolide) Roucel uses a closer skin musk Tonalide — a musk that is, to many, outdated and old fashioned (an unfortunate notion which I think this scent disproves). Black Opoponax contains natural castoreum which naturalises this musk fond, and I added a touch of Tonkin Intense to anchor the whole and add a touch of complex animalic warmth and to improve wearability.
This fragrance has many elements that are often connected to so-called "grandma" scents (lavender, vanilla, musk) but Roucel is a clever perfumer and manages to avoid that cliché.
Making It Unisex
Were it to be left at just the aforementioned materials, this would be a feminine scent (with perhaps a slight nod at the masculine with the tonalide) but Roucel masculinises the scent with a fairly hefty dose of coumarin, patchouli and sandalwood.
For sandalwood he chose to simply use 5.5% of Sandela. It is sweet, discrete and long lasting. It is the perfect sandalwood to go in a modern musk scent. It offends no one and stays true to itself through the entire dry-down, stopping the musk from becoming isolated and uninteresting. Natural Mysore Sandalwood oil from the Black Opoponax base links the resinous amber base to the scent as a whole.
Coumarin is neither masculine nor feminine; it features at 8% in the original Chanel No 5 and in similar or lower amounts in the masterpiece Fougères of the 20th century (such as the wrongly maligned Drakkar Noir, a true work of genius, and scents like Azzaro, Patou Pour Homme and Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier), but in the dose used here and coupled with lavandin oil, it imparts a wholesome masculine (but not too much) vibe. It reminds us well of those scents for men which are loved and worn mostly by women (Eau Sauvage for example)
The Fraterworks Touch
While searching for imagery to use on other projects, I came across a nostalgic photograph of a rose bush beneath an old window; it reminded me of the elegant French antique stores I love to visit whenever I'm in the city. That photograph combined with the elegant lady concept I have perceived in this scent was the inspiration for my tweaks.
The original perfume had lavender oil but I chose to switch it out for Lavandin Abrialis. The Abrialis oil (the oldest of the lavandins) is the most floral and intense of the family. It has an earthy and an almost antique quality so it made perfect sense to use it in place of cleaner lavender oil.
The Patchouli in the original gave me an obvious segue into my Akigala Extreme base, a wood base built around patchouli and pepper notes. It was the perfect way to add a touch of black pepper to the cinnamon bark and clove buds of the original. The pepper serves to complement the ruggedness of the Abrialis oil and to modernise the classic spice duo (it is de rigueur for black pepper to be used in a sweet context rather than a savoury one these days, and of course it has long been known that freshly cracked pepper is essential for enhancing the flavour of ripe strawberries!)
Speaking of Food…
While the original scent blends vanillin and ethyl vanillin and leaves it at that, Vanilla Supreme was calling out to be included. This luscious absolute-type base contributes all the elements needed to give a truer and less chemical vanilla. This formula shows how perfectly musks, vanilla and sandalwood blend.
Musc Ravageur has a simple and beautiful rose note comprised entirely of Geraniol with Phenyl Ethyl Phenyl Acetate. This unusual combination makes a lovely antique rose with a clear honey character. No changes were made to this marvellous combination.
A touch of Osmanthus absolute with its ripe apricot and leathery facets rounds out the whole.
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