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| Damaged atomizer and typo on back of box: "And her" should be "And hers." This vintage box and bottle survived all these years because it was probably pulled stock that was taken out of commercial circulation. |
I don't know if it's because Coty barely changed the box and bottle of Musk for Men, or if it's because Jōvan was ahead of its time with its packaging in the 1970s, but my deep vintage box of Musk Oil for Men from 1974 looks weirdly modern. Alas, the bottle is critically damaged. There's a massive, perfectly circular hole that looks factory made in the atomizer unit near the neck, so when I depress the nozzle, the fragrance sprays inside the bottle, and nothing exits the atomizer. The eBay merchant I dealt with lives in an area of Indiana that was hard hit by the recent rains and flooding, so his week-long delay in sending me the fragrance is somewhat understandable, though a post office, last I checked, doesn't care what the weather's doing.
However, he knew the atomizer was busted and half admitted it to me prior to shipping, asking if I still wanted it. (I disapprove of this sales tactic; he didn't mention any damage in the listing.) I said I did, because in my mind a deep vintage Jōvan Musk isn't really something I would wear with any regularity. The fragrance has barely changed in 53 years, and my much newer bottle of Musk for Men Signature Edition is just as shag-carpet perfume porno as this stuff is, so I'll never need to actually wear the vintage bottle itself. Collector piece only. How was I able to smell a locked-in fragrance? There's a neat little trick where a busted Jōvan atomizer stem — the part that holds the nozzle — depresses a hair too far, which, when the bottle is turned upside down, releases dribs and drabs of liquid, rapidly enough to make use of.
This deep vintage formula, released only a year after the fragrance's debut, is basically a straight-up synthesis of North Vietnamese musk deer secretion via a material called Tonquitone 0613. I smell this version of Tonquitone as the main difference from the Signature Edition, which features the updated variant, Tonquitone 1206. This is a very subtle difference, but it's noticeable. T-0613 is very warm and smooth, with no hard edges, no intense civet-like rasp or urinous sharpness. T-1206 is sharper, more overtly animalic, and just a touch trickier to pull off around polite company. I find Musk Oil smells, well, oilier. It's a softer, rounder scent, with a brighter white floral component complementing the musk and less mint than the Signature Edition, but with more musk overall — smooth as a baby's bottom. I recommend finding Musk Oil, if only to experience the original American musk profile that defined the '70s and early '80s. Mind-bending stuff? Hardly. But well made, and a lot of fun.