Elvish Musk Béjar 2014

Ergoproxy's comment is - including minor subjective deviations - nothing substantial to add: Elvish Musk is rubbish. It seems even more rubbish when I consider that Ramon Bejar has proven himself to be a great perfumer on various occasions. This fragrance nonsense becomes completely incomprehensible given the fact that Bejar is a confessed musk lover. That this botched fragrance water also carries such a wonderful name crowns the absurdity.

“Elvish Musk” - these are bright iris tones, delicately fruity aromas, and friendly-bright woods, carried by a wonderfully soft, clean white noble musk that unfolds in a creamy-powdery incense dome, only to be finally cradled by a gently vanillized tonka cushion…

Not so with Bejar. The somewhat fresh bergamot still reveals itself to me and gives hope - but then Hilde Knef grabs the microphone: “From now on it went downhill!” Whether she was cremated, I do not know - in the scent experience, it becomes stuffy-dusty like in an urn. The stated jasmine last bloomed in the early late Middle Ages, and the theoretically doubled peach blast thanks to osmanthus turns out to be a selection of dried fruits without dried fruit. Anyway, the pyramid seems to have sprung from the imagination of a not even bad perfumer - it finds no expression in the scent experience itself.

Animal notes? Long dead as well. At least the idea of amber, the undoubtedly present musk (fanfares! parades! rejoicing choirs!) still manages to lend the idea of sweetness in the drydown. However, between bergamot and base, the whole affair smells more like a used cleaning rag that at best emits remnants of a fabric softener. That was - thanks, Ergoproxy - quite herbally scented, but stands no chance against the prevailing brackish-dirty notes (and the perfume doesn't even convincingly get the dirt over the ramp olfactorily!)

I tried it twice; the first time I was completely overwhelmed and had to scrub after 3 hours. I endured the second test manfully - and will not start a third: Rarely has a fragrance been as unpleasant to me as this one! Somewhere in the back of my mind, the hope for a mistake in the sample filling quietly whines; Ergoproxy's comment quickly dismisses that. The tendencies in the scent perception are too similar for me to seriously hope for an oversight.

The longevity is - we are talking (despite all reluctance) about a musk fragrance - at least wash-resistant, the sillage guaranteed to be too strong in every conceivable case. I have already expressed myself maximally enthusiastically about the bottle when I commented on “Wild Oud”; therefore, I conclude analogously, albeit with a diametrically opposed…

…Conclusion: Outside nice, inside the worst!

Edit from 26.08.2015: Today I actually met a lady who considers "Elvish Musk" to be the most successful fragrance of the series; it feels like a second skin. So do not let yourself be deterred from testing.