Avon Soft Musk
Avon (1981)

Avon Soft Musk by Avon (1981) is more or less what it says. The daytime twin to Avon Night Magic (1981), Avon Soft Musk was less powdery, less heavy on the rich vanillic tones, and overall just more spiritedly, while still being a musk. Exactly plugging the hole for a soft, inoffensive, generically-feminine musk product that was becoming increasingly popular among the hoi polloi tired of the seventh-generation re-treads of the big-boned chypres, or fattier 70's musks that were spawned by roll-on oils passed around at Woodstock, Avon delivered Soft Musk just in time. Sure, the powerhouse tuberose fragrances were playing helter skelter in high society, but the average Avon customer didn't want or need whatever Lauder or Giorgio was pushing. The most Avon Soft Musk speaks to me is "okay, I'm presentable, let's get on with it", and I think that is sort of the point, as it didn't even have much of an associated product range like all other Avons did at the time. There is even a bit of hairspray vibe in the very open that one might miss, just to hit this fact home.

By the early 80's, this soft peach and rose/jasmine combo - once a hallmark of sophisticated quiet femininity in the 1950's as contrast to the hornier things dripping from department store counters - had moved into the working woman's equivalent to a wet shaver's scent for guys headed to the office. Douse this on, pull over your mix and match Claiborne top, Easy Spirit pumps, check your perm, and out you go to do your 9 to 5 at the local notary office, fresh out of high school or community college. The musk profile bolstered by banana-like ylang-ylang is just soapy and clean enough to be pleasant but ignored by the boss, but creamy enough that you'd still feel desirable wearing it, just not until you shot on an extra spray out the door to meet up with your date after hours (who works across the street). Of course, you'd likely layer Night Magic right over this for that purpose, as recommended by your Avon lady, but I digress. Performance is good, a bit better even than the average Avon thing sold at this time, although nothing I'd write excessively about. I don't think people wore this for its performance, in relation to what else was around.

For guys interested in all the many line-blurring classic Avon femmes, bold chypres, heavy civet florals, spicy orientals, powdery iris heliotrope bombs, this is not it. By this point in the Avon fragrance evolution, we had hit a sort of malaise in the company where make-up had started to out-pace perfume, and thus receive more attention. Men's fragrances fell into a strange rut, and a creative nadir of sorts set in on the women's scented ranges, with very staid and pragmatic exercises like this becoming the norm, over your mom's Avon, per se. Not that Avon Soft Musk isn't good, it just isn't very provoking, and if you're a guy digging for buried treasure across the aisle from the likes of Avon Black Suede (1980) or Avon Wild Country (1967), you won't find it with Soft Musk. What you will find, is a dependable floral musk that you've probably already smelled a dozen times on your older sister from the likes of Coty, Matchabelli, Shulton, just in an Avon bottle. Thumbs up

I remember this from its release but was always a snob about Avon. Shame on me!

I was looking for a fluffy cloud of a fragrance & as I’m not really a musk lover this wasn’t this wasn’t on my radar. Still in my head I had a vague olfactory memory of something soft, subtle, palest pink & with the texture of velvety rose petals.

Sam Scriven’s I Scent You a Day blog sent me to Avon for something else completely & whilst scrolling this gem popped up.
Immediately I knew this was what had been tickling my scented memory. For £5 for 100ml what could go wrong?

The answer to that is absolutely nothing!
Soft Musk is just what I smelt in my head.
Velvety, fluffy, palest pink, subtle, rosy & musky.

Not in the style of today’s “beast mode” sillage & projection monster musks but exactly what I want for days when I want to smell good to no one but me

A light, easy, powdery and slightly soapy floral. I found a sample from the nineties. I had a collection of them when I was a kid and this one is one of the most used one. Very clean.

On me this didnt work. My skin doesnt generally agree with the brand. It smelled synthetic and cheap, and not at all musky.

enjoyable and soft, easy to wear

This is a scent for blending into the background. It isn't the kind of scent that stops you in you tracks. I can't detect much floral, just a very comforting powdery musk. It reminds me of being cuddled by my mother even though I don't think she wore this. It's lovely as a bath powder. Recently it seems that Avon have tried to keep prices low and quality has suffered with a lot of their lines. This one is the same as it always was, dare I say a 'classic'. It does what it says on the tin 'Soft Musk'. I'd wear it to work to smell 'nice'.