Musk

Moschus / Wild Musk

Axe 1983

My first review of my first "scent" ever.

As a teenager, around 13 years old, I first set out to find something to smell that wasn't spray deodorant. The only scent I knew was the one at home from my father, of course having no knowledge of the notes of that perfume. He wore and still wears a green musk scent from Brut.

"Inspired" by that, I went to the city and immediately noticed the name "Musk" on the aftershave from Axe. I didn't even smell it since it was completely sealed.

At home, I unpacked it and applied it directly to my neck. I liked it and from then on, I wore it every morning before school.

To describe the scent with today's knowledge and experience:

For the price and its intended use, it can't really be considered a perfume, but the scent is synthetically sweet and has that strong, masculine musk note. You can talk about a sillage for the first half hour, after that it is only faintly noticeable. The scent actually lasts a bit longer, on the skin maybe 4-5 hours.

As a substitute for perfume, I wouldn't recommend it; I'd rather use an oil.

The bottom line:

Even today, I dig deep through my boxes to smell the bottle and think back to earlier times. In terms of scent, it doesn't get the best rating, but it is an inseparable part of my characteristic DNA.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

You smell like my grandpa, that exact phrase I heard when I last applied this deodorant! A relic from old times, the sillage and longevity are unbeatable for 5-,€, but who really wants to smell like that? I can't detect any other component from the deodorant or the aftershave other than chemical musk. Conclusion: It was probably a hit in the 80s, but no one really needs it anymore!

I had completely forgotten this scent. So thoroughly that I couldn't even remember having forgotten it.
But then fickle fate struck and banished me to England.
To Stanstead Airport.
In the evening.

Anyone who knows Stanstead knows that it is a punishment to have to wait a night there for a delayed flight...
Well, the gods must truly have a wicked sense of humor.
They sent me... Jorge.
Jorge was very talkative and knew no fatigue. Although my eyes soon began to droop, that did not stop him from sharing everything that moved him in those moments. And that was quite a lot...

Did I mention it was summer?
It was warm. It was even warmer than I would have liked, because the hangar, which was grandiosely referred to as "Terminal" in Stanstead, had no ventilation.
Stale air is exhausting...
I suppose Jorge thought so too. And so he quickly took action.
He moved about three steps away from the fully occupied rows of horrifically uncomfortable wire mesh seats and opened his suitcase.
As he began to take off his clothes, I became a bit more alert in disbelief, wanting to assure myself that I was not trapped in a nightmare...
Jorge, now in his underwear, rummaged for a lighter, more comfortable pair of pants and a fresh T-shirt from his luggage.
And then... then he did not put on those pants and that T-shirt.
Far from it.
Instead, he pulled from the dark depths of his suitcase... IT.
A large black bottle with a red label... where had I seen such a thing before? Somewhere in my head, an alarm siren began to screech and wail hideously.
Too late.

Jorge shook the black bottle ecstatically, removed the cap with a grand gesture, closed his eyes reverently...
But.
But!
Then he sprayed with all his might. And that was quite a lot, as it was a large bottle.
He sprayed himself from head to toe with Axe Musk.
Thoroughly.

A sticky, all-consuming, reddish-gray cloud wafted over the rows of seats and the defenseless, overtired travelers, providing them with a top-notch olfactory experience.
The smell of long-stale plastic from an ancient organic waste bin, enriched with painfully sweet artificial cotton candy aroma, biting and penetrating, clawed at our nasal mucosa.
Children began to cry and convulsively vomit, elderly ladies fainted, the synthetic covering of the seats began to melt, and our flight was delayed by another two hours.

Axe Musk... I remembered.
For a long time, I had worked at the entrance of various nightclubs. And yes, that was it, that heavy, massive, stinking smell that clung to the nasal cavities like synthetic pink powdered sugar, which I had appreciated so little back then, especially on male teenage disco-goers.
That smell, which seemed to consist largely of stale sweat and for which the term "fragrance" was truly a completely unacceptable euphemism.
When one perceives Axe Musk, one feels as if biting into a lump of silver paper.

The ingredients listed in the fragrance pyramid published above should be understood as a bad joke.
Axe Musk has none of that to offer. It is a heavy, cloyingly sweet, nasal mucosa-burning stench that unfortunately seems to possess an almost infinite longevity.
Clothing that comes into contact with this stench must be disposed of as hazardous waste.
An unprepared attack from this stench causes the eyeballs to harden and leads to the realization that there are worse things than death.

I curse Jorge for reminding me of it...

As the title says, it smells exactly like the hand skin cream from Nivea from childhood days (the blue cream jar) - there's not much more to say about it!
Best regards, Mortokai