Prince Matchabelli Sexiest Musk sounds less like the name of a perfume than it sounds like a challenge. I mean, calling something the very "sexiest" and at the same time enclosing a coupon offering a dollar off the price of its body spray, regularly sold for $3.79, is just plain agitating for street testing.
Last night, I took Sexiest Musk to a dinner party. I put dabs of it, Jovan Musk for Women, Coty Vanilla Musk, Strange Invisible Perfumes Musc Botanique and Parfumerie Générale Musc Maori on my arms and asked the guests to tell which, in their opinion, was the sexiest musk.
As I walked into the capacious dining room after dabbing my arms, Ray, on the other side of the room, immediately said, "Did you put on your musks?" The perfume apparently overwhelmed the smell of Sterno cooking under a copper pot of meatball hors d'oeuvres. "That's the one I smell," he said, pointing to my left wrist where I'd put some Sexiest Musk. Maximum sillage, I noted.
"That one smells like chocolate," Minott, another bachelor, said of the Musc Maori. Tom said it smelled like brownies, and Laleña and Ray agreed.
"That one smells like my grandma's bathroom," Nora said of Jovan Musk for Women, "And that one smells like something the ladies would be spraying at Nordstrom," she said of Sexiest Musk. I wondered what the ladies at Nordstrom might think about that.
None of the guests would cop to thinking that any of the musks were sexy at all, and they had nothing to say about my favorite, Musc Botanique, and little to say about Vanilla Musk, except, "Oh yeah, I smell the vanilla now that you mention it." I wished I had tried the musks I truly do find sexy — the dry down of L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing! and Caron Parfum Sacré extrait, although they smell best the next morning.
To me, Sexiest Musk smells like a cartoon version of musk, if cartoons could be rendered olfactorally. It is sexy like Revlon Cherries in the Snow lipstick and a cheap, baby blue push-up bra are sexy. Sexiest Musk is a powerful, sweet, straight-on, ambery musk with a subtle undercurrent of lavender, the kind that beats up Serge Lutens Clair de Musc in the schoolyard then goes to smoke cigarettes by the flag pole. There's nothing complex about Sexiest Musk. It's boy mechanic and New Jersey girl musk, frills-free and available at your local drugstore for less than the cost of a subscription to True Romance.
Strangely, Sexiest Musk, if worn thoughtfully, could be supremely chic. Pair Sexiest Musk with a well-cut suit and Hermès bag and we're talking something interesting. Apply just the tiniest amount of Sexiest Musk with your Oscar de la Renta ball gown and you'll have their brains swirling. This will best work for the woman or man — because Sexiest Musk is definitely unisex — who appreciates picking up a bottle of YooHoo with his freshly made sushi or reading the classic comics version of Hamlet before he goes to Shakespeare in the Park. That person knows that the reason that Sexiest Musk earns its reputation is because its wearer finds it sexy, and that's what matters most.
Prince Matchabelli Sexiest Musk is available in 35 ml Eau de Parfum or 75 ml Fragrance Body Spray, and can be found at drugstores and mass market chains.