Bigboy
True Ouddict
2020: A Musk odyssey
A long overdue review on the Mongolian Musk pod I bought from ninjarobb.
I searched high and low for a relaiable and trustworthiness source from which to procure high quality musk grains. There were remarkablely SO VERY MANY places apparently selling genuine material...or so you would think! Most of what you see on eBay is absolutely trash...I can tell you off the top of my head first hand that the market is full of ABSOLUTE garbage.
From musk oils that are dilluted damn near to death, and dried up recycled smelling grains...to actual coffee grinds and tainted and synthetic oils blended with next to zero actual musk grains involved....I have to admit that the musk market is substantially more shady and rife with fraud than even the oud oil and Indian sandalwood markets. Finding those special grains to soak up my absolutely drop dead gorgeous cream spicy 100 year old gcms tested Indian mysore sandalwood oil was quite the adventure in and of itself!
ENTER NINJA ROBB:
After scouring the internet, ,ebay, and etsy and everywhere else.....I ENDED UP WHERE I SHOULD HAVE STARTED: on ouddict talking to ninja Robb. SEVERAL long LONG winded
Questions later I pulled the trigger and purchased a pod from him...knowing he is a well respected and reviewed seller, member, and contributer to this forum gave me assurance and set my mind at ease.
Communication with NinjaRob was easy and always pleasant. He was patient and understanding of all my concerns about putting anything less than magic beans (grains) to soak in my outrageously rare and beautiful antique mysore oil. We spoke via text extensively and for several days via whatsapp before I purchased a 15g pod.
The packages arrived packed very well and securely with plenty of padding and tape to get through. upon opening the box I could IMMEDIATELY smell the pod!It was was divine ! As I peeled away the tape the scent become stronger and stronger until i had the beauty of a pod in my hand. Now, as far as musk pods go, or anything called a "pod", one would normally not assigne an adjective like "beauty " to describe it.....however in this case that was the only word appropriate. It was just a perfectly shaped gray Mongolian musk pod with a little fuzz all around it and a couple dozen strands of white hairs on one side while the rest , and especially the opposite side was totally devoid of any hair (key sign of legitimacy is one sided hair on your pod....if its covered in floor to floor carpeting you have something else thats fake) also of note is that Mongolian musk pods are specifically known for not having much in the way of hair. It took me several weeks before I could bring myself to ruin this little musky sachet of joy. I half wanted to just put it in my shirt pocket and walk around wirh it all day!
I took out a hobby knife and sliced the pod open useing a spoon to scoop the grains out. I suggest doing this on a paper plate because you will want to fold the paper olate in half later when your done cleaning the grains and want to out them back in your container (which should be an airtight bottle like the pyrex I used). The grains were very smooth textured and exactly the right amount of dry to begin macerating in my 100 + year old antique mysore oil. They also left a smudge on paper when smeared (tell tale signs of authenticity. )The aroma is NOT skanky, NOT fecal, NOT CHEMICAL , NOR SYNTHETIC SMELLING IN ANY MANNER OF WAY. Just a pure raw animalic musky aromatic profile one would expect from musk.
A note about Mongolian musk, it has a unique profile that is hard to place. Now I know that someone made mention of a marker smell. Raw musk , especially Mongolian and the more rare breeds like kasmiri (hit me up if you have some) can be like oud in that your brain can not really recognize the profile and starts flying through your aromatic roledex of memories (just dated myself) and winds up selecting whatever random smell you can most closely associate. I had to sit there for a while smelling for a long time to figure it out but it Finally registered on my scent Rader what was being talked about. Its funny but because if the interplay of mysore oil in the profile i get pencil shavings vibe sometimes. Again thats just reflexive olfactory assignment based on restructuring your brains understanding of a something altogether novel. ...which probably had not happened to many of us since we first smelled real ouds.
For those who are curious I've been useing approximately 35-40% depending on how well I can add that day.
Amazing to have access to such a rare anf beautiful aromatic material. We truelly are blessed to have NjnjaRobb provide us with REAL and VERY high quality grIns. Just be ready with your tweezers and magnifying glass to get those hair and skin out. If you want your oil to smell its best I suggest you TAKE YOUR TIME AND GET ALL THE SKIN AND HAIR OUT.
And on that note let me take the opportunity to tell you that NOTHING, AND I MEAN NOTHING MAKES YOUR MUSC MACERATION SMELL MAGICAL LIKE TIME.
Thanks for reading my long winded review. Hope you all found it informative and enjoyable!
A long overdue review on the Mongolian Musk pod I bought from ninjarobb.
I searched high and low for a relaiable and trustworthiness source from which to procure high quality musk grains. There were remarkablely SO VERY MANY places apparently selling genuine material...or so you would think! Most of what you see on eBay is absolutely trash...I can tell you off the top of my head first hand that the market is full of ABSOLUTE garbage.
From musk oils that are dilluted damn near to death, and dried up recycled smelling grains...to actual coffee grinds and tainted and synthetic oils blended with next to zero actual musk grains involved....I have to admit that the musk market is substantially more shady and rife with fraud than even the oud oil and Indian sandalwood markets. Finding those special grains to soak up my absolutely drop dead gorgeous cream spicy 100 year old gcms tested Indian mysore sandalwood oil was quite the adventure in and of itself!
ENTER NINJA ROBB:
After scouring the internet, ,ebay, and etsy and everywhere else.....I ENDED UP WHERE I SHOULD HAVE STARTED: on ouddict talking to ninja Robb. SEVERAL long LONG winded
Questions later I pulled the trigger and purchased a pod from him...knowing he is a well respected and reviewed seller, member, and contributer to this forum gave me assurance and set my mind at ease.
Communication with NinjaRob was easy and always pleasant. He was patient and understanding of all my concerns about putting anything less than magic beans (grains) to soak in my outrageously rare and beautiful antique mysore oil. We spoke via text extensively and for several days via whatsapp before I purchased a 15g pod.
The packages arrived packed very well and securely with plenty of padding and tape to get through. upon opening the box I could IMMEDIATELY smell the pod!It was was divine ! As I peeled away the tape the scent become stronger and stronger until i had the beauty of a pod in my hand. Now, as far as musk pods go, or anything called a "pod", one would normally not assigne an adjective like "beauty " to describe it.....however in this case that was the only word appropriate. It was just a perfectly shaped gray Mongolian musk pod with a little fuzz all around it and a couple dozen strands of white hairs on one side while the rest , and especially the opposite side was totally devoid of any hair (key sign of legitimacy is one sided hair on your pod....if its covered in floor to floor carpeting you have something else thats fake) also of note is that Mongolian musk pods are specifically known for not having much in the way of hair. It took me several weeks before I could bring myself to ruin this little musky sachet of joy. I half wanted to just put it in my shirt pocket and walk around wirh it all day!
I took out a hobby knife and sliced the pod open useing a spoon to scoop the grains out. I suggest doing this on a paper plate because you will want to fold the paper olate in half later when your done cleaning the grains and want to out them back in your container (which should be an airtight bottle like the pyrex I used). The grains were very smooth textured and exactly the right amount of dry to begin macerating in my 100 + year old antique mysore oil. They also left a smudge on paper when smeared (tell tale signs of authenticity. )The aroma is NOT skanky, NOT fecal, NOT CHEMICAL , NOR SYNTHETIC SMELLING IN ANY MANNER OF WAY. Just a pure raw animalic musky aromatic profile one would expect from musk.
A note about Mongolian musk, it has a unique profile that is hard to place. Now I know that someone made mention of a marker smell. Raw musk , especially Mongolian and the more rare breeds like kasmiri (hit me up if you have some) can be like oud in that your brain can not really recognize the profile and starts flying through your aromatic roledex of memories (just dated myself) and winds up selecting whatever random smell you can most closely associate. I had to sit there for a while smelling for a long time to figure it out but it Finally registered on my scent Rader what was being talked about. Its funny but because if the interplay of mysore oil in the profile i get pencil shavings vibe sometimes. Again thats just reflexive olfactory assignment based on restructuring your brains understanding of a something altogether novel. ...which probably had not happened to many of us since we first smelled real ouds.
For those who are curious I've been useing approximately 35-40% depending on how well I can add that day.
Amazing to have access to such a rare anf beautiful aromatic material. We truelly are blessed to have NjnjaRobb provide us with REAL and VERY high quality grIns. Just be ready with your tweezers and magnifying glass to get those hair and skin out. If you want your oil to smell its best I suggest you TAKE YOUR TIME AND GET ALL THE SKIN AND HAIR OUT.
And on that note let me take the opportunity to tell you that NOTHING, AND I MEAN NOTHING MAKES YOUR MUSC MACERATION SMELL MAGICAL LIKE TIME.
Thanks for reading my long winded review. Hope you all found it informative and enjoyable!