Just in time for Halloween, let’s talk about one of perfume’s spookiest ingredients — civet.

So spooky, in fact, that seeing the little civet icon on a fragrance note list is enough to scare some people away from a scent entirely.

But what is civet, and where does its less than savoury reputation come from?

Civet is what perfumers call an animalic note — something that smells bodily, musky, a little wild. And like many animalic notes in perfume’s history, civet originally came from an animal.

Now, don’t worry — all of our perfumes are completely vegan and cruelty-free. The perfume world has truly cleaned up its act since the 1800s. Today, perfumers use carefully crafted synthetic molecules and accords to recreate the animalic tones that once came from real animals — civet included.

Historically, civet came from the civet cat — a small, catlike mammal found across Asia and Africa. Despite the name, they’re not actually cats; their faces are more like ferrets or otters. These animals produce a musky paste from glands near the tail, and that paste is what was once used in perfumery.

Now, civet can smell… intense. Musky, sweet, putrid, animalic, even a little fecal  So why on earth would anyone want that in a perfume?

The answer is: transformation.

Used in trace amounts, civet doesn’t make a perfume smell dirty — it makes it come alive. It deepens florals, adds warmth, and helps a fragrance last longer on the skin. Animalic notes like civet are what turn a perfume from something simply pretty into something magnetic, sensual, and alive.

Our own bodies have a similar duality. We smell of salt and warmth and sweetness — a reminder that we’re living creatures, not separate from the natural world but deeply part of it.

The natural world isn’t just blooming flowers and fresh fruit. It’s also things aging, ripening, decaying — the full, beautiful cycle of life and return. Animalic notes like civet remind us of that cycle. They help perfume capture not just the polished, romantic side of being human, but the earthy, instinctive one too.

In our line civet can be experienced in our grand dame of a rose chypre Fin de Siecle