Musc des Sables
Les Indémodables (2019)

There is a scene in one of my favorite tv shows where three people are in camouflaged equipment and clothing in this lush, tropical wilderness landscape waiting for wildlife to photograph, an attempt on their part to see what it is like being professional wildlife photographers. The silence of the lush forest surrounds them, interrupted only by occasional and gentle staccatos of bird song and breezes rustling tree canopies. The cinematography and editing relay an impression of a lot of time passing by, waiting, and in then in the still silence you here one of them bellow: "Bored! I'm bored now!" Another pipes in, "yeah, I didn't think wildlife photography was going to be this boring!" That's pretty much how I feel about Musc Des Sables.

The landscape of the perfume, just like in my television show, is breathtakingly beautiful but the beauty wears thin rather quickly - you've taken-in all of the scenery that you can take in - and you're left sitting on your backside waiting for something to happen, for something wild and alive to show up but nothing ever does. Musc des Sables is less like a perfume and more like a cosmetic in its behavior. It's like something you would put in your hair, or color you would add to your skin or nails, its intention to be applied, admired by you - the wearer - for a few moments, and then forgotten about, left only to be noticed by the occasional person that comes across your path; it's not for you, it's for the people around you.

When I first apply it, I am greeted by an orris note that comes across like dehydrated milk powder. It's dry and super powdery, of course, but it doesn't smell dry, and it certainly smells milky in a slightly animalic way. The milk powder is mixed with tiny teaspoons of ground baking spices, but these aren't fresh spices, they were ground a long time ago and stored in a plastic container in your pantry. These dry down very quickly to heart and base notes of fruit-chouli, musks, and ambergris. The musks and ambergris are of great quality, pleasantly animalic and slightly salty, but they are, surprisingly, not really the stars of the perfume. Instead, "Sand Musk" or "Musk of Sands", casts a fruity patchouli in the starring role. Very mildly and pleasantly earthy, with just a touch of pepper, it's the dried but oily tissue paper-thin slices of orange laying over the patchouli that dominate nearly the entire life of the perfume.

The materials used in Sand Musk - I'm going to keep referring to the English translation to drive-home the point that I don't know what this perfume is supposed to be or do - are beautiful and expertly blended, just like the lush landscape of my television show, but also just like the characters of that show after more than a couple hours I'm saying "bored. I'm bored now." The landscape doesn't change, there's no animal emerging from the trees to excite me. Fruit-chouli is not my thing, it's been done a million and one times before, and I've rarely found any of them to be compelling; musk certainly can be my thing, but this perfume wants to play a lot more with fruity patchouli than musk. I'm just repeating myself but I'm so bored that I'm lacking anything else to say: it's high quality and well made, it's just boring. For my money and interest, if I want a true and modern musk perfume, not a fruity patchouli trying to disguise itself with musk, Musc Tonkin is hands-down better.

Great mixture of mandarin and spices. Slightly powdery and rich. I'm not usually a fan of musk fragrances, but this is great. So far, every fragrance from this house is very good. 8/10

I applaud the high quality ingredients used in Musc des Sables, but can't bring myself to like it all that much. To my nose, Musc des Sables is really just a slightly feminine talcum powder that is ever so lightly musky. I prefer Civet Cat Chypre for this type of fragrance. I also don't see much development. Not my style, but I'm sure some will enjoy this type of fragrance.

Musc des Sables is the first sample of the Les Indémodables that I drained completely. It is just – how do I put this – fucking adorable. It’s as if someone took the plush toy friendliness of Helmut Lang EDP and the vintage powder puff of Teint de Neige and dunked it in a bath of condensed milk and fleur de sel caramel, and then wrapped it up in a pure white ermine fur, the likes of which have not been seen since the Childlike Empress emerged on her mother-of-pearl half shell to greet Atreyu in the Neverending Story.

A translucent tres leches cake. Expensive Italian talcum powder. White kitty belly fur. Breastmilk after having downed ten doughnuts. I don’t know, man. I have no business smelling of anything this sublime. It’s not reinventing the wheel or anything – there is a caramelized, biscuity undertone that reminds me of Muschio by Santa Maria Novella and the juxtaposition between childlike and sensual is very Helmut Lang-esque – but if I were to be tempted into buying any of the Les Indémodables, it would be this. And then I’d have to guilt-buy Oriental Velours when I realize that I’ve bypassed originality for the equivalent of a weighted blanket yet again.

I am on Cloud 9 when wearing Musc des Sables. Dreamy, blanket soft, set adrift, like dozing off while Weather Channel local forecast (On the 8s) music plays in the background. The orris absolute is in a cocoon of velvet musks so that its muted, pastel, neither cold nor waxy, all mid level, amplified by ambergris, lending the slightest beach air to seep into the sweetest pillow fort in which to get lost in thought.

Milky bubbles pop, benzoin warm and frothy, as if it could be made into a beverage and you face its delicious steam, the slightest malt texture as patchouli syrup is added and you sip it and wrap yourself up, swaddle yourself and surrender yourself to its bliss. Plushy, fluffy, lipid musks feel like the way a Fender Rhodes sounds with string accompaniments, the timbre of roundness and lilt. Musc de Sables is smooth as satin in the dry down and gorgeous from application to its nuzzle phase. Primo.

Musc des Sables

Perhaps I like animalic fragrances more than I thought? This is an 80's type of Musc- enveloping and warm. It does remind me of Helmut Lang EDP, which is my mom's signature. This one is particularly sweet. There's a definite sweet almond note that I'm personally partial to, but I know a lot of folks can't stand. It strikes me as a cloud of almond-flavored cotton candy. Very enveloping. Very sticky. The musk note is similar to the one in Labdanum 18, another Maurice Roucel. Antoine Lie definitely took inspiration from Maurice Roucel here. Sort of Tocade-meets-Helmut Lang EDP, with a dash of Hypnotic Poison.