Musc Ravageur
Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle (2000)

This is a lovely, furry little thing. Smells like if you buried your nose in your cat's fur, except your cat had rolled around in some sandalwood-vanilla-cinnamon fragrance oil. Can be a bit cloying if worn in warm weather or oversprayed.

One thing I will say though, contrary to popular opinion this is NOT sexy. Not at all. It's cozy and warm and furry. Completely unisex. Your grandma could wear this. It smells like something you'd want to smell cuddling on a couch by a fire when it's really cold out. Not "sexy" in the slightest.

To me, it doesn't smell animalic or dirty at all!
It's a generic vanilla and cinnamon perfume, maybe the pre-formulation smelled dirtier but I will never know. I don't run around spending a ridiculous amount of money on vintage bottles

One of the strongest first impressions i've had to any fragrance. Absolutely unique, yet completely wearable, while being artistic. At the end, i get an old man smell, but other than that i love this thing, and im pretty sure i will soon get used to that old man smelling base. A legend for ages!

I know this one is held in high regard by many, but it really didn’t work for my skin and nose.
Too powdery and sweet in a chemically kinda way for me.

Food courts, teenagers, designer fashion like Hugo Boss and Armani Exchange, cotton candy, strippers, schnapps, shirts unbuttoned three buttons down, all-inclusive paid trips to resorts in which you don't experience any of the local culture, women I would want to have sex with rather than date or love, punchy formulaic club music, gold chains, gelled hair, hangovers, cigarettes, Marshall's, boy bands, over spraying, men with no necks, men who talk about getting laid more than they get laid, women who date men who are bad for them and have no necks, women who don't know how or like to dress down, juvenilia, talking on the phone, naive first kisses, holding hands, terrible and uninspired American diets, maxing out credit cards that don't belong to you, cheating, the oughts, pop.

This is the imagery that Malle's Musc Ravageur conjures for me. The house of Frederic Malle has consistently disappointed. From POAL's terribly thin ambery base that feels suspended from my body to Promise's never-ending cypriol to Superstitious's gaudy unattractive lipstick, the house can't seem to understand that perfumes that end their stays on my body with chemicals are anything but sexy, attractive, and intriguing. Musc Ravageur, while not as loud, overstays its visit just the same and reminds me too sheepishly of my perfume tastes from my early and mid-20's.

Musc Ravageur smells soulless and uninventive. I feel like I dress better and am smarter than what this fragrance wants to project onto me. Oddly, I'm reminded of my first love affair with perfume: Gucci Pour Homme II, a fragrance who's bergamot, cinnamon, pimento, musk and tobacco leaf do something similar in creating a clean, tidy, almost fresh impression of sexiness that nowadays leans too much toward buzzed haircuts and characterless, off the rack fashion. Add Dior Homme Intense to my memory of what I used to smell like, allowing the powdery vanilla of Musc Ravageur to work in similar ways to the ambrette (musk mallow) of DHI, along with the lavender of DHI, also present in MR, and you pretty much get the nightmare that is Malle's creation. There's nothing sexy about it unless you love nostalgia, remembering what it was like to fall in love with someone too young and dumb to have developed a taste for anything. In older age, with a little more life experience, maybe this person now likes Serge Luten's skanky MKK, or perhaps they've grown their tastes ostentatiously to appreciate the inordinately priced offerings of Roja Dove, or it could be that they hopped on the Western Aoud train and at least smell less like a sneaker-wearing teenager and more like a run-of-the-mill office worker. This person could have tastes that stray so far from my own but that nonetheless equally depart from what Malle's Musc Ravageur has to offer, and still, this person, who I do not know and would probably not ever know or befriend, would still be doing something right.

I tried this originally in around 2010 when it was all the rage as one of the "must have" clubber scents. It just didn't click with me.

Fast forward 10 years and into retirement. Some of my tastes have changed. Kind of got a weird urge to try it again so went with a small decant. Love it now.

I suppose at my age I have no business wearing such an overtly sensual scent, but screw it.

It sits nicely on the brink of musky, sweet, vanilla, spicey. Nice dry down and nice longevity.

A great "looking for trouble" frag even if you're too old for trouble.