No.2 Tonkin Parfum 30ml
He gave you musk so old and sticky and black and oozing with an animalic roar that would make most perfumers tremble – this was not the musc they’re sold and told to use – the kind that looks like water, nice and clean.
He spoiled us. After smelling the SQ aromatics stowed away over half a century… how do you go Yessir! to big bro now? You got to trade in your bootlegs for the stuff of legend – literally… academic papers wrote about this musk like it’s an artifact, a prehistoric relic we know once existed but nobody ever saw or smelled.
The sweaty, sensual signature of No 2: Tonkin flows with jasmine, the kind that requires tons of petals to turn into oil, proper otto, and blackcurrant, a sticky mess to work with but a sweetener par excellence to tease out the zesty treacle-like bite of musk itself.
The leather jacket is full-grain – it may have cuts on it, scars and bruises. It wasn’t spray-painted with chrome to remove any trace of character and make it all nice and uniform to please the masses who vote for the artificial, the fake, the lifeless muscones and jasmarones and call for a ban on… this smell.
Georgian rose and coriander waltz onto the floor creaking with wild Kepi agarwood that bleeds red sambac in a primal, peppery R-rated scent of steaming bedroom sweat, spent. Musk.
The old, olde Tonkin musk adds some proper animalis to the husky heart bulging with civet and spice. From the colored slopes of Namaqualand to the shrubs lining surfing coasts and riwoches galloping through Tonkin mountain paths, cumin and helichrysum musked-out, drunk on black tea and castoreum.
Before it became a commercial (synthetic) staple, the sensual funk of the muscus grains had baffled and bewildered perfumers for centuries. They toyed and tried, and eventually mastered musk’s alchemy. And that’s when the party started… and how the Ravageurs were born.
No 1 was a humble addition to the mighty cuir tradition. No 2: Tonkin, a tribute to the cornerstone of all things fragrant:musc, made with the same musk our ancestors traded like gold and carried around bare in their pockets – it smelled that good.
TOP
Coriander
Sichuan Pepper
Pink Pepper
Cumin
Cedar
HEART
Helichrysum
Blackcurrant
Jasmine Sambac
Rose Otto
Black Tea
BASE
Tonkin Musk
Wild Kepi Agarwood
Sandalwood
Castoreum
Beeswax
Not to take anything away from the first No 2, but if you wanted to make a musk perfume to end all musk perfumes, this is the contraband you wish you could dunk into your blend.
Nobody saw it coming. Then… bam. Smack in the middle of lockdown as you wait to hear what the lab says about your empty vials, you get handed Vietnam’s forgotten treasure with an obvious mandate, “Here, go make it now!…”