Musc Nomade
Goutal (2008)

Musc Nomade is at first deceptively diaphanous, a discreet complement to the skin, a personal enhancement.

I had nearly forgotten that I was wearing it just an hour or two in on the first day. Then, after a walk in the summer rain, opening returning home and relaxing after the work day, there were these wafts, lactonic, animalic, but also slightly herbal and sweet, hints of angelica root and tonka. Mind you, they are wafts, but they are just so hauntingly beautiful. Subtle transmutations can be detected within these facets, and the somehow, the delineation between me and my bed seemed to disappear, is this my own skin, my body odor (it never smelled this great!), my bed sheets, is there something else in the air? What puzzlement! I think this might be Musc Nomade, its alchemy, both sensual and comforting.

As I nuzzle into my skin eight hours into the wear, there's the tell-tale aroma of ambrette seeds. There it is! Just like the essential oil and absolute I have in my possession. But then there's also dark woods that weren't noticed up until now. The ambient impression, away from the skin, is so different, a different 'vibration', for fear of sounding a bit too cosmic.

I really look forward to experiencing this in different environments, different temperatures and times of the year, because I can tell its fascinatingly mercurial. Mind you, I have a bottle with the older classic Annick Goutal label as pictured that should have never been updated, perhaps from around 2012.
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Musc Nomade is groovy, man...

A light woody scent with tonka, faint almond notes and some dusty musk. Mostly I get wood. It reminds me a bit of Jaisalmer in a wood-incense way (not being burnt, the packed bricks of wood chips you get in import shops or the Albuquerque airport.) Rather nice and light, but not distinct other than 'kinda woody.' This is a review of the older formulation.

Musc Nomade - Annick Goutal
A suprising sour dry anisic-herbal note opens a warm round powdery musk that associates with fresh cotton and a bitter-animalic tone, like castoreum. It gets an indolic baby-foodburp note, a musty paper/old book one that reminds of cinnamon and a certain airyness. It grows a little stronger, picks up a more powdery-balsamic tone and a little sweetness. From its heart this perfume radiates a beautiful persistant warm note of warm horse-fur with a little saltyness to it, like fresh sweat. The dryout brings more weight and fluffyness at the same time: a light creamy/salve tone with hints of fresh peppermint, candysweet, cozy vanilla and an almost incensewood-like spicyness, plus a natural bitter waxy-musk tone of ambrette seed with a hint of clean soap.
Most musk perfumes I found to be too sweet and lacking structure,  but this one speaks a language and tells a story of its own. Very decent stuff- potent and skilfully executed.

Light, airy fresh. Not what I was expecting. Faint flowers. Papery-wood accord. Clear musk. The flowers, don't seem to increase in "size". They remain distant. This plays out as a skin scent for me. I wanted more...

This has been reformulated and much to its detriment. I used to adore its slightly vegetal muskiness. It was a berry-sweet, barely there puff-of-a musky ambrette. A very pretty and enchanting mid-point between clean white musks and far dirtier ones.

Now however, it is nothing at all. Or it is a nothing created synthetically with only a faint resemblance to its original self--which was already faint enough to begin with. This is kind of sad, since it filled a much-needed and right-in-the-middle spot on the musk spectrum.

Don't bother unless you can find an older bottle. (Even then, you, like some, may be anosmic to its particular type of musk notes.)

Grassy Patchouli

I was hoping Musc Nomade would be a truly Oriental musk reminiscent of Arabie, the steppes of Central Asia, or the Western Lands of the Silk Road.

The opening is a boozy citrus. The heart and base emerge quickly and dominate. The whole fragrance is overpowered by grassy patchouli and vetiver. Whatever musk there is is mute and largely undetectable.

Sadly, Musc Nomade is little more than a grassy patchouli "head shop" type fragrance that might have been popular in the 1960s. At this price, I would recommend the much more affordable Molinard Musc, which is nearly identical and 1/4 the price.