Vintage Musk Oil by the House of Dana.

Musk is one of the most penatrating essences known to man. It's diffusive power is unequal- just a few molecules can scent literally millons of cubic feet of air. Perhaps that is why many animals and insects use this fragrant bodily secretion to send silent, invisible signals to lure mates or warn competitors. Humans are also exquisetly attracted to (and repelled by) the smell of musk. It is no wonder Musk has such an evocative allure when you consider the central role it plays in securing the survival of a great many different plant and animal species. (photo: rubyslippers.ca/history)

At the same time musk is incredibly useful in the construction of perfumes. It acts to chemically 'fix' or absorb and preserve the other volatile components-including the floral and vegetal essences of flowers, spices, grasses/herbs, and woods. It smooths and blends all of the other ingredients making it an excellent base material. In addition musk often imparts it's own scent into the perfume. How does just plain musk smell? Like sandalwood, urine and ambergris, it is very sharp at first, with a unique spicy quality that varies from musk to musk, followed by a sweet uncutuous finish. The synthetic musks translate that fatty quality into a more airy, powdery effect that is much clearer and more appealing to the modern nose. Some musk has a very floral-rosey quality as well but it smells as if the flowers had been cooked down into a tarry oil; musk has to be diluted to be appreciated. And when it is allowed to mix with air and other ingredients, it creates an expanding softness that travels on the air and enlivens all the others elements, enticing the nose and creating a longing to smell more.

There are several different types of musk but the most famous type for perfume comes from the moschus moschiferus or Musk Deer. These are strange little deer with no antlers, instead they have large tusk-like fangs. The musk deer eat mainly leaves, flowers, and grasses, with some mosses and lichens. This diet would be perfect for creating wonderful chypre-perfumey smelling deers! Little Musk deers were found across large areas of China and Russia but they were nearly hunted to the edge of extinction. People harvested both the musk glands and the tusks but today the animals are protected. The musk gland is located on the abdomen between the testicles and the umbilicus and in the wild, the deer just drop little 'musk pellets' on the ground as they graze. The scent of the musk wafts up inot the air and acts as a pheromone, transmitting subtle chemical signals to other deer. Hunters were too impatient and greedy to collect the droppings, so they simply gutted the deer and removed the entire glands, nearly wiping the creatures out. There are farms in Russia today were Musk deer are raised and their droppings are harvested but the quality of this farmed musk is inferior to the wild type. (photo:© WWF/H-W Schuldei/Leipzig Zoo)

The second type of animal derived musk that is widely used in making perfumes isn't really a musk but the secretion of the civet cat is commonly called civet musk. Produced in the male cat's perianal glands, the substance serves as territorial marker and is a potent aphrodesiac for the femal cat as well. Civet is classified as a feminine exciting scent. It is known to be especially penetrating and difficult to work with in it's raw form. Check out this advice about civet paste from http://www.profumo.it/ : "Do not get frightened by the smell of Civet musk. Just put a little bit of the civet paste on a piece of paper and smell it after a few days. The delicious flowery tones are indeed surprising. This is a very effective aphrodisiac for women. if a husband wants to stimulate his wifes libido, let him spray the bed sheets with Civet tincture masked with a little bit of Ylang Ylang essence." (photo: coconutstudio.com)

Besides civet and the musk deer, there are a number of plant based musks. Ambrette oil also known as "Musk Dana" and Abeimoshus Muschatus or Hibiscus Abelmoschus; these are the plant sources most perfumers prefer. However like musk animals such as the ox, rat, lorikette, beetle, duck and turtle, to name just a few, there are a number of musk plants including the cabbage, rose, thistle and okra. (photo: ag.ndsu.ed) But the largest catagory of musks are the synthetics. In 1888 the first synthetic musk was produced. This family was called the aromatic or nitro-musks, which were followed in time by several other large classes of unique musk compounds including polycyclic and macrocyclic musks. The polycyclic musks were developed after World War II. This is a photo of Galaxolide, a polycyclic musk. (photo: MadeinChina.com)

Today most of the musks on the market are of the synthetic variety, and plant derived musks are popular as well. Perfumes may contain combinations of sythesized musks and natural products. Synthiesized civet and deer musk are also available as are more ecologically friendly farmed 'wild' types.

As far as my little bottle of Dana Musk Oil, I couldn't find anything about it in my research. I did find a reported release date of 1972 which I can't verify. In 1973, Dana did release another musk that I do remember, called Monseiur Musk.

It had a big square black glass bottle, very 1970's looking. (photo: perfumezilla.com) The style looks nothing like my bottle below, which looks like it could be from an earlier era but who knows.

By the time Dana produced this bottle, it was a drugstore brand. There are remnants of a store tag on the back of the bottle, the price was $3.50 for 1/2 ounces. What makes this musk special to me is its strong animal quality which is another reason I thought it might be a few years older. In fact it was so goaty, so cat-boxy, that when I first tried it, I put off reviewing it. I sampled it again numerous times, trying a dot of it here or there, waiting for something to happen but it seemed rock solid. I figured the best thing to do with it was use it for layering with another scents. After all, perfumers often find adding a little bit of something noxious can impart highly desirable facets, giving a quality that enlivens the other ingredients in a perfume.

But the next time I opened the oil and applied a pin sized amount, touched my wrists together I was surprised to be greeted by a heavenly, fluffy, pillowy smell, all soft, creamy and dreamy, like a baby's head. The next day, it opened up further revealing buttery tuberose notes. What I thought was almost unsalvageable has been elevated to high art (in as far as musks go) a floral, spicy musk with creamy sandalwood, soapy facets, although lurking somewhere in there my nose still detects what seemed urinous before. It is positively magical, truely a chameleon scent that seemingly changed before my eyes. (photo: uncredited)

Post Note ~ Recommended Musks of Today ~

Luckily if you like clean, soft musks there are many to choose from. I especially like Jennifer Lopez's Glow, available in the drug store, department store catagory and it is still widely available. If however you want to sample some of the more adventurous 'perfumista class' musks, there are two that are really popular and widely lauded- Serge Lutens Muscs Kublai Khan and Frederic Malle's Musk Ravageur. Those are more niche, high end so you'll have to search harder to find them. If you like oils (my personal preference is for oils, they tend to wear more politely than proper perfumes), then one cult favorite that I really think is superior is Bruno Acampora's Musc Essence, an earthy, tangy musk that makes my mouth water sometimes. And if you can, go to Ava-Luxe's on-line store at http://www.ava-luxe.com/ and try some of her artful and thoughtfully blended musks such as Rasa, Kama, Madam X (especially love this one!) and Love's True Bluish Light (if you love your musk angelic) to give you an idea of the complexity and beauty of this scent material. If you really like to experiement, you can try hunting down some of the seriously exotic musks offered on EBay. They are pricy but worth knowing if you are serious about exploring musk. I always put in the search words "oud musk" to find the right kind. Try to find someone selling 1 ml or less to keep it affordable. I've tried both oud musk and oud free musk; I prefer the oud musk. (And remember with Ebay, it's all about the seller's feedback, so look for someone with 100%; that way you know they care about and work to maintain their rating, but as always be careful!)

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

Dana Voodoo Perfume- Cherries & Costus

I am back to report further on the identity of a little mystery perfume mentioned in an earlier post. It came in a plain looking, round bottle with a plain looking little black top, a micro mini with no label or design I could see... It held just a smidgen of thick red-brown juice in the bottom. Unmarked perfumes, especially those in undistinctive looking bottles, just aren't that interesting to me... In order to appreciate a perfume fully, it seems that you need to be able to identify where it came from, what's in it and who made it... and until you know it's name, you really don't know it at all. But the scent in this little bottle was different- really it was too good for me to let go. Once it got its hooks into my nose I just had to track it down. But there was absolutely nothing to be done about it so it lingered in its little spot and every once in a while, maybe if I felt in a bit of a funk, I'd put just a tiny drop of it on and enjoy the weird, cherry sweetness.

Then a couple of years later I bumped into another perfume that reminded me of the little mystery jus- Luctor et Emergo by People of the Labyrinths. When I stumbled onto POTL, I had no idea there was a 'perfume world', a world that could only exist because of and on the internet but I was captivated by the smell of it, white flowers and grasses which smelt nothing like how you thought it should. Somewhere between cherry pie and playdoh, it was the first niche perfume to catch my attention; but my preference for the old fashioned, passe and out of place grew, perversely perhaps, as I smelled more and more of the new niche fragrances. That's when I began to appreciate how much I really loved the past era of vintage perfumes which I'd always worn and had around, mostly due to finding the perfume incidentally while hunting for vintage clothing and other treasures!

So fast forward to a bleary eyed night when I staring at the monitor's alien glow, scanning through rows and rows tiny thumbnail photographs of vintage perfume bottles- when I found myself staring at a bottle of vintage perfume and thought, "Hey, I've seen that before". And sure enough, the bottle resembled my little mini but it had a name on the lid, Voodoo. Ah ha! Maybe this Dana creation was the answer to my perfume riddle... but without further evidence I remained sceptical. I soon began to notice other pictures of the Voodoo bottle in various collections but it was always empty, then just recently I managed to locate a bottle that still contained within it the magical cherry cola colored brew. Luck was with me and Voodoo was soon be within my reach although there were still some weeks of nail-biting, waiting for the package to arrive safely.

When I received the smallish black padded satin box and saw the beautiful little bottle of Vudu (the European spelling), my heart skipped a beat! Of course an immediate comparison with the dregs of my tiny sample ensued. I am pleased to announce: it's a match! Somewhat validated, I conclude my good eyes and a good nose lead me to the right place. But dear reader, since I do not have a classically trained nose, you may question how well I smell and my ability to describe accurately the perfumes I present here. I don't get to smell many of the recent released perfumes I read about either, and still I find when I do, if the writer has done their job well, that I am familiar with how the perfume is going to smell. Sometimes, as with Estee Lauder's Sensuous, I knew exactly how it would smell- just based on other writer's words ("molten river of woods"- it wasn't the biggest hit with me, honestly it smells like a base, not a fully formed perfume, imho). Anyway, I do have a good palate/nose and my mind still seems pretty good too so the bottom line is, you've just gotta trust me.

However, you were given a clue about this scent when I compared it to Luctor Et Emergo although there is more to it than that. The perfume I received this time is less dehydrated and better preserved than my original sample so I'm smelling several elements here for the first time. And this is what I smell: at the open, is a savory herb- tarragon, thyme or basil. I'm not able to tell these apart super well (in perfume form at least) but I smell a certain something, an unexpected turn away from the usualy fruity or floral citrus of most perfume openings... I'd assign to it a greenish/black color if various aspects of fragrances had colors. I always love the quirky akwardness I perceive from these herbal accents within a floral perfume, I find it surprising and it keeps things from becoming too conventionally pretty for me.

Amouage Jubilation 25 opens with tarragon and that smells similar to the herb effect I get here. Along with the tarragon comes a rapidly sweetening violet-cherry symphony, in which I find big heliotropin, with ionone, orris, jasmine, cassis, orange blossom and clove bud facets all present. As the scent progresses into middle and dry down, two different stories present... One is the story of french soap, a clean up involving creamy carnation, rose and a little vanilla. But the other side is far more disturbing tale, that of dusty dirty hair, old wax candles and muddy vetiver.
This is costus- a big part of the darker side of Vudu, whose scent recalls voo doo rituals replete with shrunken heads, dried chicken's feet and blood mixing with dirt and ashes.

Keep in mind also that while I compared it to Luctor Et Emergo, Voodoo does not really smell so alike to that perfume. It does not have the bright techno strength and modern pop of POTL's creation nor any of its heavy resinous wood/amber notes (the playdoh that some people so hate!), but also the cherries in Vudu are much more real, visceral. Here is heliotropin that I'll bet came from a nice hot purple-pink "cherry pie plant" variety of the Heliotrope flower, not the bluish or white types that can have a scent more like a wan vanilla cookie.

The history of Voo Doo perfume is interesting, too. Some sources date its creation to 1951, but this is wrong. Voodoo was trademarked as a perfume name by Dana in 1938/39. There was a court case in the USA involving the use of the name Voodoo for perfumes that reveals a little more of its history in America. Apparently a San Francisco shoe salesman by the name of Rolley who had a side line as an amatur perfumer claimed that he had used the name Voodoo for his perfume since 1940 and owned the name. But Les Arfumes de Dana Inc., would have none of it. Even though Rolley only sold his perfumes in only a few shops in the Pacific-Northwest, Dana sued him for trademark infringement in 1953 and when Dana produced the proof of trademark (sales bills from US going back to 1938), the courts decided in Dana's favor. Rolley tried to change his dates around but to no avail. It could not have helped that Rolley also had perfumes called Taboo and Forbidden Fruits when Dana had two earlier hits with Tabu/Taboo and Forbidden!

I'm not sure if the court case may have caused Dana to pull back on US distribution of Voodoo... It had apparently reached $250,000 in sales by the time of the trial and I don't know how big that was, given a 20 year span in which it has been made... but today Voodoo is undeniably scarce. Even advertisement images are scarce. I see only about three vintage ads out there that feature Voodoo and always it's shown with three or four other Dana perfumes.

I'm not about to go into collecting vintage print ads for perfume any time soon, so I do not own the ad and I've not been able to read the fine print describing Voodoo- I would LOVE to know what it says, though!

So this is how the story about my little mystery was solved and has ended. Happily, this acquistion helps form a memorable chapter of the history of early House of Dana Perfumes as featured here at The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

Dana Voodoo: vintage perfume sighting?

I have here a photo of a little bottle of perfume I've had for several years. I've always loved the scent contained in the dark traces of juice remaining, but I never had an idea of the identity of the mystery scent. Then, while researching another Dana perfume story, I came across another photo that reminded me a lot of my little bottle. What do you think? Are they the same thing?

My bottle is really tiny, only 1 1/2" tall, a micro mini. The latter image is a larger 2 ounce size. It has the name etched on the cap, but it would never fit on the micro. But notice how the perfume traces even look the same. So I think it's likely I've finally identified this mystery bottle. And now, I want confirmation. So if any readers know the answer for sure, or can maybe describe how Voodoo smelled, I'd love to know. The perfume in my sample smells very sweet and cherry flavored, like the pie with spices and everything. A heliotrope laden scent with herbal top notes and a typical dirty french base, is what I get. Today I smell lots of cloves and cinnamon in it, too, but I could've sworn before it was just sweet cherry.

If I ever find another example of VooDoo, I'll do a more extensive review!