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You refer to civettone and civet almost interchangeably throughout the text but they are in fact very different. Civettone is a musk molecule related to muscone and in fact it has little dirtiness other than being characterized as a musk. Civet (cynthetic or not) is typically very clearly identifiable as fecal.

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A fair callout to make, however to my nose civetone is clearly identifiable as the core component of natural civet, which we know it is at a molecular level. Both to me have fecal elements, though the natural is of course stronger.

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Beautiful and evocative writing as always. I used to be extremely self-conscious about the smell of my scalp and hair, even when others reassured me that I don't smell abnormal. Very cool that Marlou celebrates smells like these — it's going to take some unlearning on my part but maybe I'll be able to appreciate how my body naturally smells too!

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