Civet Bomb
Areej le Doré (2022)

Not only are animalic aromas are not a monolith but how you process them will vary according to individual experience with animalic smells in general. Smells come to all of us filtered through our childhood memories, mental associations, and biases. For example, because I worked on a farm, most deer musk smells warm and round and alive to me, even though the animal from whence it came is long dead. Castoreum always smells dry to the point of being parched, which is why I like it less. For a long time, I found some force-aged Hindi oils to smell like bile and billy goat, an association I had to work hard to get past.

But civet? The most difficult of all for me, but of course, because these perceptions are so individual, perhaps maybe not difficult at all for someone else. To me, civet smells really sharp, leathery, and foul, perhaps a bit floral in dilution. The word that usually comes to mind for me when smelling civet paste is ‘unholy’.

But while those properties are definitely present in Civet Bomb, two things save it for me. First, the civet paste has been co-distilled with rose, meaning that the sharpness of its funk has been softened somewhat. Second, the co-distillation has accentuated the geraniol content of the rose, so there is this minty-camphoraceous greenness floating over the civet paste note that lifts it and freshens its breath. Sharpness is exchanged for a lively bitterness, and this is a good trade off.

Be forewarned that the animalic quality of civet paste is still very much in evidence, but its inherent foulness comes more from the ‘staleness’ of well-rotted leather or wood or old radiators rather than from the anal secretion of a civet cat. As with all of these attars, Civet Bomb ends up wrapped in a thick blanket of that buttery old sandalwood Russian Adam is using here. In the far drydown – if attars can be said to have a proper drydown at all – the lingering civet and sandalwood aroma reminds me of the handsome maleness of Jicky or Mouchoir de Monsieur in their far reaches, albeit much simpler and less mossy-herbal.