Botanical Musk

An all-natural musk accord from Palette Naturals, built on ambrette seed, amyris, and guaiac wood. Clean, softly animalic, and creamy-woody: musk from plants rather than animals or the lab.

A natural musk accord created by Palette Naturals, made entirely from natural aromatic raw materials as ISO 9235 defines them and built around ambrette seed, amyris, and guaiac wood. Musk once came from a gland of the male musk deer, a trade now almost entirely abandoned for ethical and legal reasons, and nearly every modern musk is synthetic. This accord takes the older plant route instead. Ambrette, the seed of Abelmoschus moschatus (a relative of hibiscus), contains ambrettolide, a macrocyclic musk lactone closely related to the synthetic macrocyclic musks. Amyris (Amyris balsamifera) adds a soft, sandalwood-like wood, and guaiac wood (Bulnesia sarmientoi, from the Gran Chaco of Paraguay) a smoky, faintly rosy warmth. The result is clean and softly animalic, with the earthy, carrot-like facet typical of ambrette, a peppery lift, and creamy woods beneath.