Following up on the post where we touched on the topic of Kasturi (musk), one of the five famous fragrances often mentioned in the scriptures, alongside sandalwood (chandana), agarwood (aguru), saffron (kunkuma) and camphor (karpura), here we will demystify the fragrance for those who have never smelt it.
The original fragrance is very rare since to acquire it involves killing an endangered animal, the musk deer. In its raw unrefined form It has been described by modern perfumers as being very animalic, smelling similar to an old rug covered in cat pee. Not very pleasing to most people.
Many synthetic and natural musk-like compounds have been developed to replace the rare original musk for use in perfumery. For example Musk Ketone, Galaxolide, Tonalide, Muscone, etc., which provide the basic musk fragrance, but with the fecal scents removed to make it softer and more palatable.
Now some may ask, where can we experience these fragrances, so that we can know what exactly is the smell of Kasturi, glorified throughout the scriptures. The answer to this comes with good news and bad news. The good news is that its very easy and cheap for you to experience this fragrance for one peculiar reason.
Throughout the world the makers of fabric softener have been using Kasturi fragrance as the default scent for their products for years without telling us. You have already smelt Kasturi, in fact the smell is probably very familiar to you. And that brings us to the bad news. You probably won’t like the smell, because you have smelt it so much in connection with soap and laundry that you will subconsciously think of it as an artificial chemical scent.
When you smell it there will be no mysterious exotic feeling to it. You will smell it and say, “That’s fabric softener.” It will be a complete let down for you once you connect the two concepts in your mind. That exotic mysterious fragrance glorified throughout the scriptures for thousands of years is fabric softener.
If you are in India and want to smell it, pick up the pink bottle of Comfort, like in the photo, and that’s what Kasturi smells like. In the west, I don’t know which particular brand will correspond, but you can probably google it and find one that is also based on the same fragrance. For whatever reason all the companies making fabric softener have been using musk-similar compounds for their fragrances for years, without mentioning it by name.
TEST-2
