Muscs Koublaï Khän (1998)
by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

This is truly a great perfume. It is not sweet like the other lutens. It is a simple, delicate, animalic thing, that really turns me on. The smell of musk is the olfactory equivalent of a tender kiss on your cheek. I always feel like making out when I smell this perfume. If you can buy it, please do it!

This fragrance is touching in the deepest , dirtiest way, comforting and disturbing all at once.

The first thing I get from it is unwashed intimate parts of a male.
The first impact is dry urine and other excrements, mixed with sweet tobacco of a chain smoker, dusty polyester trousers and an unwashed body warmed by the sun.
Smelling it makes me smile because my nose gets lavanda,civet, tobacco leaves, leather, castorum and labdanum, vanilla, and maybe also fava tonca... woven into a devlish masterpiece. Comforting because of its human scent.and at the same time terrorising... because of its human scent.
It is what we would smell like if we did not have showers and fresh clothes at hand every day.
It is comforting because it reminds us of our human roots and leck of perfection, it 's so real. But in a society where everything has to function perfectly and be anti-septical, this fragrance will scare all who try to cover all human smell.
I think it is like caron pour un homme who chain-smoked, drank and partied for a week without ever popping into a shower. I think I would wear this in combination with a stunning evening dress for a dinner with someone I have an open revenge with. It is so breathtakingly beastily terrible that it is already genial.
A fragrant insult and a masterpiece.
It does not smell good though.
Something that might leave You in doubt... did she or did she not... wash? It is freaky. I love it

I am not a huge fan of the Serge Lutens line. I appreciate them, but they are not my style at all. As a whole I find that their compositions tend to have sharp edges and are composed to be very bold, with very discernible delineations of each note, rather than seamless integrations of accords. This is the style of this house and they do a great job with that particular aesthetic, but they are not generally to my liking.

Having said all that, Muscs Koublai Khan is a masterpiece. Anyone who has spent time with actual animal musk tinctures knows that many animalic notes in modern perfumery are far away from their natural counterparts. MKK is a massively successful recreation of true-to-nature animalic perfume notes. Although there are also non-animalic notes in the composition, they are purely ancillary to the 4 note accord of Musk, Civet, Ambergris and Castoreum. It is quite an accomplishment given that no animal products were used in the making of this perfume. This is a scent that many will like and others will find difficult to wear; however no one who is familiar with the natural notes that are recreated in MKK can argue with the fact that this is a masterful creation. My hat's off to this house. Bravo.

If someone would ask me what is that one fragrance which every serious male frag-head should own, my answer would be this, Muscs Koublai Khan. (In full-size that is, just because this juice if anything should be admired from that wonderful, classical bell jar bottle)

A true work of perfurmery art. Stays close to the skin, this is the ultimate essence of man. Actually, in a way, most masculine fragrance ever created. Primitive, sensual, erotic and extremely natural.

Magical Sheldrake composition for men, it is ridicilous for me even think about this on a woman.

Having purchased a vial of MKK decant, and saying my prayers, I was besides myself when the package containing said scent arrived. A spritz to my wrist produced a visceral response. The opening was floral in nature and brief. The heart notes, when they arrived, transformed a civil and non-judgmental night, into a night filled with one epiphany after another.

The mid notes (heart) are not putrid and wanton. To my nose, the leather/tobacco was quite muted. However, an hour in, a new presence made itself known. As so many others noted, this presence was (once again, to me), smelled of male genitalia, mixed with 2 days worth of secretions and some hint of its (MKK) brief and transient acknowledgment to Western standards of cleanliness.

In short, a masterpiece.

To my uneducated nose this doesn't smell like musk at all. It smells like baby powder. To me this is much more to the feminine side. I don't smell a single note that smells animalistic or dirty. Quite sweet. Oh well, it was worth buying the small sample to discover this.