Musky Woody

Synthetic musks fall into four main groups. The nitro group, such as musk ketone, was found by Albert Baur in the late nineteenth century. The polycyclic group includes Galaxolide, discovered by IFF chemists in 1965. The macrocyclic group includes muscone, Habanolide and ethylene brassylate; muscone is the key odorant of deer musk, isolated by Heinrich Walbaum in 1906. The alicyclic group began with Firmenich's Helvetolide (1990). IFF's Cashmeran sits between musk and wood. The wood is usually sandalwood, Virginia cedar and Iso E Super.

IFRA prohibits musk ambrette (2006), musk moskene and musk tibetene (2008) and musk xylene (2009); musk ketone is under a specification standard (2010). Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 adds hexamethylindanopyran (Galaxolide) and hexadecanolactone to the allergen list. Cashmeran has an IFRA restriction standard published in 2020. Galaxolide has been detected in wastewater and aquatic organisms since the 1990s and has gone through several environmental assessments in Europe and North America.

Narciso Rodriguez For Her (2003), composed by Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian, is often cited as a fragrance with musk at its centre, alongside amber and orange blossom. Whether the SFP places it in E9 or another branch has not been published online.

The SFP website publishes only subfamily names; perfume lists per subfamily are in the printed Classification officielle des parfums. Perfumes named here are commonly cited examples, not official SFP placements.

The main plant source of musk is ambrette seed, which contains ambrettolide, a macrocyclic lactone; angelica root contains a small amount of pentadecanolide. Orris gives a soft powder close to musk. Sandalwood, Virginia cedar and amyris give clean wood.

The clean, laundry-like diffusion of synthetic musks has no natural equivalent; ambrette gives a warm plant musk with hints of pear and brandy. A natural version is therefore softer and closer to the skin. This page gives no formula percentages.