Cat Marnell & I Wear the Same Perfume
This second full moon in Capricorn has been WILD and, perhaps, the reason I couldn’t believe my own eyes this morning.
Before I started writing here on Patreon, I had my own fashion & lifestyle blog from 2016-2018. These were the early days, even before we began to capture influencers in the wild like Pokemon. And “beauty” was always a favorite topic of mine to write about. I’ve known makeup and skincare my entire life. I was a competitive dancer from age 5-18, and LOVED that I knew how to use makeup before most of my friends; I loved that my mom wasn’t bothered by it, and that she let me play! As easily as I could slap together a PB&J, I became accustomed to doing full beat in the 2nd grade.
My mom sold Mary Kay (very well I might add) in the early 2000s to help support our family of 3, likely as a strategic way for us to also have “free” access to skincare & makeup products. I am very lucky to be blessed with good skin genes from both of my parents. But part of that comes with the early adoption of a skincare routine. A lot of my friends (and their moms) were clueless about cleansers, moisturizers, toners, exfoliating masks, etc. While my hand was forced into a skincare routine at age 10 (partly because of all the stage makeup!), I still thought it was cool to have a beauty guru for a mom!
Fragrance was something that didn’t come into play until my middle school years. I would read Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen religiously: all of us were cheating on those personality & love match quizzes, right? Maybe I’ll throw one into the zine I’m working on?! Anyways - I would lust over the Ralph Lauren fragrance ads, specifically their “Cool” perfume. It was a hot pink bottle with a cerulean blue Ralph Lauren. “Cool” was in brat green.
The model was beautiful: her hair was salty and glittered, reflecting the sun. Her lips were painted with a light gloss that, in post-prod, looked recently injected, Megan Fox piercing eyes, glazed donut skin, and a sunkissed nose to boot - how very full circle we have come! And she was posed on the beach in the 2005 male-gaze type of way. They dressed the, likely, 17 year old in a string bikini that was just conservative enough.
She was such a force in my mind, maybe obsessive. We see one photo and create an entire make-believe life up around it. To 14 year old me, having that perfume meant I could lie on the beaches of Cabo with no braces, no hormonal acne, no body hair, a flat stomach, and no additional responsibilities but to be hot & happy!
I successfully manifested “Cool” for Christmas that year. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Cabo. The spring of 2006 would be my season of Escada “Rockin Rio” that my parents would buy me on our spring break cruise. This would be the same spring I’d get my braces off.
Magazines would tempt me to “find my signature scent” or smack me with the “must-try perfume that is guaranteed make your crush go crazy!” The marketing hooks feel so silly now, but when all you really want is love & attention (we all do), the hooks work. Can a signature scent really define who I am? Can a scent really make someone fall in love with me? During my 20s when I would partake in a Capricorn level of fragrance research, I found Uber drivers to be a great litmus test. They wouldn’t shut up about the 2 perfumes I soaked myself with the most: Alien by Mugler and another that would rip my heart out until roughly 11:37am today.
The heartbreaker was Kiehl’s Original Musk eau de toilette, introduced to me by my favorite writer, Cat Marnell. For those of you who don’t know Cat, she was the former senior beauty editor for xoJane and Lucky magazines, and now a bestselling author for her memoir, How to Murder Your Life. I know her originally from her Vice column, Amphetamine Logic. A close friend sent me the link to her column in 2012 and I was floored. I had NEVER read anything so unhinged. If you think Julia Fox’s memoir is insane…
(They’re NYC pals, by the way.)
Like this newfound obsession we have with murder documentaries, I was totally enthralled by stories of drugs, junkies, and partying. I would lie awake until 3am reading and re-reading Amphetamine Logic. In a way I wanted to live vicariously through her - buzzing around NYC beauty events absolutely high out of her mind, doing PCP until 6am on the rooftops in the East Village, sharing (or trying to share) Adderall with Lindsay Lohan in dimly lit in VIP sections, binging & throwing up Fruit Loops in her platinum blonde extensions. Really dark stuff. Most times I felt really alone in college, and Cat made her drug-fueled life feel vividly lonely, but glamorous, void of any real responsibilities. Per her memoir, there were definitely consequences. She never condoned her own behavior, but her writing was honest.
When I got my hands on a copy of her memoir, I binged it, respectfully. It’s like I could see her stumbling around NYC in her silver Lanvin flats, chewed up plastic rosaries, and smeared NARS red lipstick: her giant Balenciaga full of pill bottles, rattling like maracas.
“It was the summer of 2009, and I was walking with a bit of a limp because I had broken glass in my foot from . . . well, I wasn’t sure what from, exactly. I think I broke a bottle of Kiehl’s Musk on my bathroom floor and then I stepped on it, I guess, and I never wound up getting the shards taken out.”
Not exactly glamorous like the Ralph Lauren “Cool” ad, but strangely enough, she sold me. I never knew Kiehl’s made fragrance. I had to smell it.
In 2017, I hardly wore any other fragrance. It was the perfect androgynous musky scent that turned heads and sparked conversation. Just ask my Uber drivers. But good things don’t last forever (except for the empty bottle that I still keep on my vanity).
As I went to purchase a fresh bottle on my lunch break, it had been completely removed from Kiehl's website. I frantically searched Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Sephora, anywhere that sold it. It was LITERALLY nowhere to be found. I started to dig deep on the internet when I found a forum discussing the potential discontinuation of Original Musk, but no confirmed answers. FUUUUCK. How am I supposed to be iconic without my Original Musk?! I had finally found MY scent. The “one” that Cosmo told me I needed to find to be worthy of love!
For years I would stalk Kiehl’s website until I eventually gave up hope in 2021. It was such a niche perfume that I couldn’t foresee a real comeback. Were Cat and I the only ones keeping this perfume afloat?
I don’t know why, but something kicked me in the ass this morning to see if the Original Musk was available again. I don’t know if I was trying to make myself miserable, but, nonetheless I typed, “Kiehl’s original musk” into my search bar.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only could I “Add to Bag,” but it was ON SALE at Nordstrom. I had the natural instinct to purchase five bottles, obviously, to avoid the crises of potential discontinuation. I quickly remember I’m a funemployed Capricorn, so I stuck with one.
“Our Original Musk Oil is believed to have been created in the 1920’s at the ‘Kiehl Apothecary.’ Discovered there in a vat labeled ‘Love Oil’ in the late 50’s, Kiehl’s signature scent was reintroduced to our patrons in 1963.”
It appears the Love Oil, rooted in mystery, leaned into its own lore, only to disappear for 7 years and make its second secret resurgence in 2024. I don’t know if we’ll ever know why the Original Musk was discontinued, but, today, what started out as a strange sad day, turned into a fully inspired one as I sit here and huff my empty bottle of Musk, writing this scream of consciousness.
Xo, Rebs
