Siberian Musk
Areej le Doré (2017)

Review of Siberian Musk Part III

A Solid Musk perfume

My least favorite from this Classic collection, and still a perfume that I really like and enjoy. That kinda tells you how good this collection was. Now, the reason that I am not crazy about the Siberian Musk trilogy, and the Russian Musk brothers, is that I'm not the biggest fan of pine, greens, and citruses. There are only a handful of those perfumes that I love, so I'm very picky with them. Still, I very much enjoy this perfume, just like Russian Musk 2, but I prefer this one over the latter. Mostly because this one is muskier, more ambery, dusty, and dry, and it has a beautiful leathery and smoky quality to it. RM 2 is more polite, and tame. The opening of SM3 is full of greenery. Juicy and sparkling citruses, green, wet grass, bitter galbanum, and pine. Just underneath this green landscape, there is an ambery glow, akin to the Orient, a hint of warm desert sand, frankincense smoke, and regal, leathery musk. The greens stay through the dry-down, but the resinous-musk core makes it a beautiful journey for me. I think this one pulls off a very good balance, landing right in the middle between compositions like Russian Musk and Prin's Mongolian Mriga. I'd take this one over the first, and sometimes even over the latter, as some days the strong animalic character in Mongolian Mriga is too much to carry through the day.

Lots of musk. Gentle musk. It immediately took me back to high school days, where everyone was wearing musk from various sources or brands. I didn't get any top notes to speak of. I detected a slight orange, sandalwood, and a bit of cypress. Some lovely patchouli on the base. This, is all about the musk. It is really all I could smell. Perhaps because my sample was in a dabber vial and not a sprayer, some aspects were lost in translation. Matters not - I like this a lot. However, I enjoy Muscs Kublai Khan more.

Grand "neo-georgian" old Hotel-high class neo chypreism. Woodsy muskiness from the high rocky mountain forests. An old school leather-poudree's deja-vu, a decrepit cobbler's "boots polish-smelling" shop. Areej Le Dore Siberian Musk is a multisensorial flashback of my "lusty middle-class's style" childhood (massive leather sofà, austere wooden libraries) , the vintage chypre-age's come back-illusion. Close my eyes and...a little bar of soap, cleanising rose-water, cleaning room detergent-medicinal aroma in the air, retro dark-brown furniture, wood's polish, a french glorious vintage floral chypre fragrance on the bathroom shelf, a black musk-embrace, polished leather boots. Siberian Musk is today a clamorous contemporary link between the old school more straighforward powdery chypreism (Molinard Habanita, Moustace Rochas, Guerlain Djedi, Oleg Cassini, Capucci Punjab) and a new generation neo-vintage waxy/animalic/musky twist a la Bogue Maai, House of Matriarch Bohemian Black, Vero Profumo Onda or Zoologist Civet (and Camel as well), passing across the muskiest Abdul Samad Al Qurashi's. Siberian Musk unfolds a supremely evocative atmosphere of disappeared brilliant precious things. Hesperides, animalic musk and woodsy-resinous coniferous (mostly natural) elements are the olfactory pillars of this aromatic homage to an old school chypre-grandeur. The musky presence is quite intense, yes in your face, medicinal, rubbery (boot-polish like), waxy and mouldy (with a vague mushroom-like humid atmosphere). I'd add hints of dust, aromatic resinous burning effluviums, balsamic candless and a tad of "wood's maceration". This feel is at same time organic (yes visceral as a kind of fecal/stale post-coital muffled warmth) and vaguely floral with a spark of dainty fruity/floral more "processed" sophistication. To be clear: muskiness (musk deer) is extreme, rubbery (boot polish-like), mouldy (vegetal musk, barks, seasoned/smoky woods, dry leaves) and animalic (salty, "private parts-stale sweat miasma-conjuring" and fecal), all the rest is merely accessorial under my profane nose. Galbanum and fir resins provide the general balsamic coniferous rocky mountains-atmosphere. Despite I have to ascertain that Siberian Musk is perfectly blended frankly I don't know how this juice could not be fully fledged "placed" at the highest levels of the animalic scale since the animal musky's vibe (gradually soaring along the way) is extreme and uncompromising, pungent and "compulsive". The boisterous muskiness does not hamper nonetheless the quality of proportions. It even provides (at distance) a sort of well calibrated dandy ancestral (and somewhat cultural) ambience of old dusty books, aristocratic antiquities and burning incenses. The first stage (especially the top) unveils a concert of diverse nuances (mostly floral, citric, waxy/powdery and boise balsamic) while gradyally and along dry down the juice provides a drier more properly "rotten" and straighforward intimate (leathery/musky) feel. Siberian Musk is not an easy fragrance to be appropriately worn but I can't deny It could be confortably "exhibited" by all the lovers of mysticism, cozy mountain huts, dusty libraries or intellectual unmentionable rendez-vous.

Updated Review:

Wow. My fragrance tastes have changed so much...perhaps matured would be a better word. I only have a small decant of Siberian Musk and I decided to wear it today, and oh my...what an incredible fragrance this is. Absolutely beautiful! A lemony, musky, slightly smokey aroma wafts it's furry head up to my nose and I am enthralled by this fragrance. I think I still prefer the original Russian Musk from series 3 by Russian Adam as I get the coniferous Siberian Pine and Fir more in OG Russian Musk than I do in Siberian Musk, but SM is virtually right there with OG RM for me now. I'm going to have to enjoy my very small decant however as Siberian Musk is a true unicorn and won't be found for less than a sultan's ransom, if even then. Siberian Musk is definitely "NOT" too much for me now. I would love to have this in my Areej Le Dore collection as it is superb. Those who are fortunate enough to own this prized gem, enjoy!


Musk...full in your face...primordial. Like having the deer come up and rub it's musk gland all over your neck type of experience. After having read all of the amazing reviews of this fragrance, and when I saw the wide variety of notes listed, I wondered if this might be a musk that I would actually enjoy, but it's too much for me. Now, let me clarify by saying that I know this is a well crafted and highly exotic fragrance. As I mentioned, I was hoping to pick up the opening notes, smell some musk as this progressed into the middle notes, and then pick up the base notes as well, but this is musk all the way on me. It's not subtle, it is very straight forward and powerful. It does take on a sweeter aspect, and mellow after a full days wear, but this is a fragrance for musk lovers. Very well made and very strong.

Siberian Musk is an oriental composition centred around musk, and some citrus, pine and woods. These other elements help to enhance and showcase different attributes of the musk note, rather than detract from it. The initial opening is oily citrus and pine, giving a glimpse into the musky elements, and phase that I enjoy. Beyond this, it slowly transforms into an accord that is mostly musk, augmented with spices and some woody touches. This transformation begins at around one hour after application, and takes place over another 3-4 hours. The musk note is clean, fresh and deep. Anyone looking for a skanky musk is bound to be disappointed: compared to Muscs Koublai Khan, Salome and MAAI (I don't find any of these skanky either ....) - this is rather clean. There is a second and final transformation as the fragrance dries down to its base accord, which is mostly musk supported by a touch of woods. This phase starts at about six hours post application and lasts a long time. Curiously, this final accord is just very slightly a touch skanky compared to its initial and mid phases - however, again, not at all when if considered in relation to the other fragrances I mentioned. Personally, this final accord is also not as compelling or engaging as the initial and mid phases.

I found sillage to be on the lower side, however it exhibits excellent duration at around twelve hours, or even more. The other point of note is that the (relative) absence of floral notes. This would be interesting to anyone looking for a fresh, clean, natural musk fragrance with some depth and quality, and without any skank or florals. Another note - at no point is the musk or the fragrance is sweet by any stretch of imagination. It's not bitter either, and I don't get any medicinal, or even a herbal vibe at any stage of development. While Siberian Musk does not exactly win me over, I like its style and am keen to explore other perfumes by Areej Le Dore.

3/5

It is no news to anyone that I am in love with Siberian Musk. And at the risk of sounding overly romantic and hyperbolic, I'll go ahead and say that this is the perfume I have been searching for forever. Perhaps no one else will feel quite the same way I do since its scent profile contains and combines my personal favorite categories of scent: a deep, smokey, forested green, a sophisticated and vintage-smelling chypre, and an absolutely luscious and furrily-textured animalic musk. The fact that all three of these scent “groups” mesh into a gorgeous coherent whole is due solely to the talents of Russian Adam (who also created another of my favorites, Ottoman Empire). If you've smelled Maai, Diaghilev, and L'Ombre Fauve, and you can imagine them deftly combined and softly, plushly rounded and musked, then you can begin to get a picture of the glories of this scent.

To say that I am enamored of and ensorcelled by Siberian Musk would be an understatement. Its dry down on my clothing is a wonder of the softest, most tantalizing musky fur: a plush sable with remnants of the marten's wild animal nature still lingering seductively. And linger it does, with a projection to match. I find SB not only very natural smelling, like the deepest of forests with animals hidden in its depths, but also very sexual in a distinctly human way. There is an almost salted, heated, skin-like aspect that has nothing to do with cumin or the usual suspects. I am guessing again that this is the deer musk that provides this deeply alluring aspect. Whatever it is, and however Adam achieves this, I am simply thrilled to have the chance to wear it and live happily under its spell!