Musk Pure is a clean white musk. It kind of reminds me of musk mixed with fabric softener. When I first tried this I thought, “this is Chanel No 5 EDT mixed with Dolce & Gabbana Sicily“. After trying it many times, I still think of Musk Pure as this mix. This is a very powdery and clean musk fragrance. It is unisex and reminds me of old-fashioned aldehyde and vanillic fragrance. This is charming and all and pleasant to wear but this is why I own a bottle of Chanel No 5 EDT. And when I want a clean and powdery citrus, I reach for Dolce & Gabbana Sicily.
The top notes are tart and slightly spicy. It really reminds me of the top notes of Dolce & Gabbana Sicily, another clean musk fragrance. On the top, I definitely get lots of powdery orris white musk mixed with carnation like spice and bergamot citrus. Something about this also reminds me of Chanel No. 5. I think they call this sharp burst “tanginess”. It’s tart. Musk Pure has a lot of bitterness and is tangy. It’s spicy and somehow sour. Aldehydes? This is why I see this fragrance wearing so nicely on men, the sharp notes. This mellows out and you get more of the powdery orris root clean musk. The dry-down is sweet, warm, and luscious. It’s creamy vanilla with white musk. I want to eat it.
This isn’t a bad fragrance. I like how it wears on my skin. It is long-wearing. I know I can get something very similar to it for much less. Saying that, I can say that this is a bit of a boring fragrance and it almost feels like a Frankenstein’s monster of top-middle-base of popular fragrances . It lacks any “wow”. It exists to be a Bauhaus type of interpretation of Chanel No. 5. Throughout the wear of this fragrance I’m always sniffing it and going “Hey, it’s D&G Sicily, no wait, it’s Chanel No.5! Oh, here we are at the Donna Karan Cashmere base! Hmm…is this what Coty Vanilla Musk smells like? I forgot.” It’s stripped down modernism of a powdery-floral aldehyde with a rich creamy vanillic base. And this comes across as an extremely familiar and generic fragrance. And because it is familiar, it is easy to wear. I can see people liking this because it is well, boring. It’s really simplified. It’s modern minimalist.
Notes listed include: ylang opur, white pepper, bergamot, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, orris absolute, tonka, beeswax, and musk.
UPDATE: Product has been discontinued.
More of my Tom Ford White Musk Collection reviews: Jasmine Musk
Want more reviews? Try…
Perfume Posse (totally agree about this being a “Clean” brand like fragrance)
1000 Fragrances (also compares it to Chanel No 5)
I’m really interested in the entire Tom Ford White Musk Collection but I have to admit that the price turns me away from trying any of them.
Well, I have tried most of them and there’s no way that any would make me part with $200. Many of them are nice and I enjoy my samples of them; however, I can find similar “dupes” in all of them. These “dupes” are about $60.
[…] More of Tom Ford White Musk Collection reviews: Musk Pure […]
I wasn’t imprssed with this one at all. I found it dull. I’ve found all of the White Musks dull.
I didn’t like this one at all! In fact, I don’t like any of the White Musk perfumes. They all smell cheap and dimestore soapy to me.
So far, I haven’t tested one that I like either.