Which exact bottle of perfume does Fei Du use? I need to know what scent makes Luo Wenzhou go insane. I know it’s mu xiang, but there are so many options!
[rolls up sleeves, face flushed, eyes sparkling] BEAUTY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG I HAVE WANTED TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT MU XIANG as both a rabid moduist and someone unwholesomely obsessed with perfume, LET'S FUCKING GO—
[warning: it'll take me a while to get to the perfume i think it might be]
mu xiang is, as you say, in a zillion perfumes (or its imitation is…more on that later). it's a plant: 木香 mu xiang, also known as costus, primary latin name Dolomiaea costus. a lot of plants are commonly named costus, but the one we want grows mainly in the himalayas and throughout kashmir (it likes high altitudes) and it looks like this:
very thistly and prickly! kind of like fei du! approach with caution! most costus root is today exported to china (though it's been heavily overcollected so there are now more regulations); in TCM, 木香順氣丸, mu xiang shun qi wan, is a herbal formulation for tummy troubles, balancing spleen/stomach qi and treating symptoms like bloating, indigestion, even ulcers. but of course, costus root has also been used as a fragrance ingredient in perfume and incense for thousands of years—it goes way back. and here is where things get interesting. because let's just say mu xiang does NOT smell like sweet summer roses. are you ready for some descriptions? BUCKLE UP FRIENDS.
• Pliny, Natural History (77-79 CE): "a burning [burnt] taste and exquisite scent, though in other respects the plant is of no use." [x] [x]
• Matvey Yudov: "animalic…often described as the smell of unwashed hair—the smell of scalp and hair roots when heated by the sun, and also as the smell of a cat's fur. [Its] animalic nuances contributed to an impression of a barnyard…many people who smell costus for the first time, often refer to it as the smell of wet dog."
• Dan Riegler, Apothecary's Garden: "a beautiful, musky, tenacious soft scent that is similar to that of warm animal fur…to me is reminiscent of the smell of one's lover in the morning."
• Mandy Aftel, Aftelier Perfumes: "extremely tenacious with an aroma of old precious wood and violets, with a distinctly animal undertone of human hair and wet dogs."
• Fragrenza: "with its earthy and dusty aroma, naturally evokes animal notes. […] designer Annick Goutal describes the smell of costus as reminiscent of dirty socks, greasy hair, and goat, yet she acknowledges that in a composition, it can be exceptional."
• Fraterworks: "one of those strange odours from history. Upon first smelling it, people often recall the scent of wild goats and wet dog hair but as every perfumer knows, it is often the "ugly" smells that add the final touch of beauty to a scent."
• Roy Genders, Scented Flora of the World (1994): "a strong lingering scent. The smell is at first like violets, but as it ages it can become more fur-like or eventually become unpleasantly goat-like" [x]
• and Fragrantica summing it all up for us: "a sensual and dirty, rooty note reminiscent of unwashed hair."
[…and you can read a gabillion more like this all over god's internet]
SO LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS TOGETHER FOR JUST A MINUTE SHALL WE. lwz not only likes the way mu xiang smells, but fei du has noticed he PARTICULARLY like the "tail end" of it, the afternotes. and what are those? THE SWEATY DIRTY MUSKY GOATY ONES.
and do you remember what lwz does in book 5 when fei du drives him home, right after fei du tells du jia how he is the abyss?
Fei Du sighed, steadily turning the steering wheel, maintaining an even speed as he got onto the main road. Then he freed up some time to pull out Luo Wenzhou’s groping hand, which was feeling around under his clothes. “I’m going to crash into the guardrail by the road.” […] He saw Luo Wenzhou slowly withdraw his scrounging hand, bring it close to his nose and sniff it, then lick his fingers.
i almost can't talk about this passage (i'm blushing) but it's safe to say that lwz here is not only chasing the scent (and taste) of mu xiang's, uh, tail end, but another…base note which lies…beneath that. he's so shameless and earthy and kind of gross (affectionate) and honestly? respect. the man knows what he likes, and it's other men.
tbh i have had some trouble locating any fragrance that has real mu xiang in it, because it's now forbidden (as of 2021) as a perfume ingredient by the IFRA, the International Fragrance Association, over concerns that it could be a skin irritant (yes, there's censorship in perfume too lol). so instead, fragrance manufacturers use either synthetics or similar scents, though apparently nothing smells quite like it; most perfumers say it's completely unique. you can still buy plain roots for medicinal and other natural purposes, and i would order some, except they would just be…roots, and not the hyperdistilled oil. which is of course what fei du's perfume has in it. so let's hope he bought 50 bottles of his cologne, since real costus in fragrance is pretty much impossible to get now. i guess maybe priest couldn't give us an actual brand name for copyright reasons? but i keep thinking it's possible (?) fei du wears Yves Saint Laurent Kouros, an aromatic fougère, although trained noses say the new synthetic Kouros smells nothing like it used to. it's notorious for being very, um. male, shall we say. and its advertising wasn't ever shy about that fact:
(…so, you know. cough. no wonder luo wenzhou likes it?)
ultimately, though, YSL Kouros has like 18 million fucking notes, and i suspect fei du would like its complexity. as well as the fact that, at the end of the day, it just smells like dirty wet goat and/or eau de boy.
i could honestly bang on about mu xiang for another thousand words, embarrassingly, but a cane is dragging me offstage, so—if anyone has follow-up questions, or if you actually own and wear a fragrance with a costus note, please share! (sadly i'm a gourmand girl and cannot pretend otherwise, i want to smell like a bakery at all times.)
