Les Nombres d'Or : Musc
Mona di Orio (2010)

Heliotrope and baby powder. Very feminine to my nose. Kinda pretty. Kinda forgetable. Pretty forgetable.

Opens as a very soft, powdery, slightly musty heliotrope, with tonka & white musk. l find this distinctly underwhelming, & l'm thinking it's one of those "non-perfumes", for folks who like skin scents that won't offend anyone. Those who love baby powder might find it comforting, & it could make a good linen spray, were it not so pricey! After ten minutes or so, the tonka intensifies, & three hours in it's much sweeter, but otherwise it doesn't change much, & seven hours in it's fading out.

Far from being musk, this is more reminiscent of loukhoum scents like Keiko Mecheri's, or like a de-fanged Sweet Oriental Dream by Montale, with much less rose.

A lipstick, powdery floral musk. Somewhat monochromatic but, in a good way. The heliotrope really shines in this one. After it settles on my skin I get some musk, neroli, Tonka bean, and a touch of rose. It's sultry, timeless, and enchanting.

A billowing, cushioning musk, all powder, soap and heliotrope, this is perfumed fog. While I get gentle spice tones and even hints of sandal, Musc is mainly about that formless, clean, flower-infused musk. How much you like it will depend on how much you can appreciate that diffusive quality. Some will find it sumptuous and enveloping, even symphonic; me I miss a bit of bite and would have liked a bit more definition.
Having said that, I appreciate how this composition rolls out, persuasively filling out the space around the wearer with its gentle but quite insistent presence. The musks used seem to be quite layered and have depth, even if lacking definition, and the tonka in the base adds a nice dry vanillic touch. As a rose lover I don't get the prominent rose some others seem to get from this and the neroli is pretty much absent, it's the pale mauve of the heliotrope that rules. But even that departs in the deep drydown when all that is left is a sweetish drugstore musk with a vaguely floral aspect.
Probably the kind of perfume I would wear when I might want it as background mood music rather than for active interaction – which is to say hardly ever.

Beautiful, loud heliotrope opening....I fell in love. Then rose and I guess Neroli, something floral. I found it extremely feminine and very, very pretty. Then, about forty minutes later a weird (but good) masculine smell, very colognish and bright. Then....nothing. completely and totally gone. I didn't smell any musk, or didn't recognize it as such if I did.
So a thumbs up for a great forty minutes. Would I ever, even if I won the lottery, pay what they're asking for this? Absolutely not.

A different take on musc. Powdery and slightly soapy this rose and neroli musc is not bad at all. The florals blend in nicely with the musc in this one. I think I would get tired of this after a while. Unisex also.