Word: civet
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...many a euphemizing U.S. furrier, a skunk is not a skunk at all. It is a "genuine civet cat," "Alaska sable" or "black marten." For four years, the Federal Trade Commission has been trying to get Congress to outlaw fancy names for common furs, last week finally won out when President Truman signed such a bill. Under it, the FTC will issue a "Fur Products Name Guide," which furriers will have to obey, e.g., black Manchurian dogs will be known as black Manchurian dogs, and not as "Belgium lynx" or "black poiret...
...harvest continued at Grasse this week, the prospects of the French perfume trade were not as pretty as the blossoms. Of the many ingredients required to make men sniff with interest, the fields of Grasse produce only a few, and not enough of those. Citronella, civet, vetivert, santalol, ambergris, patchouli and a long list of other exotic products had to be imported from abroad, and they were still not arriving in France in anything like prewar quantities. Prices were staggering; a kilo (2.2 pounds) of musk is now 100,000 francs compared with 9,000 prewar...
Modern Hunt. Since the supply of musk has never met the demand, perfumers have always looked for substitutes. They discovered that many animals have musky-smelling lure glands. Beaver glands yield castor, which is widely used. So is loud-smelling civet. Perfume chemists once eyed skunks, encouraged by the fact that many people do not mind a distant skunk smell on a frosty morning. But the perfumers finally gave up on skunks: their scent is basically a defensive weapon rather than a sex lure. Muskrat glands, a cheap by-product of the fur trade, did work. The muskrat substance...
...piano [TIME, Nov. 25]. But what is going to happen now that Airwick, the total deodorant, is spending thousands too? . . . Will the moral turpitude curve show a downward trend when Airwick kills the high-priced and seductive smells distilled from the scent glands of the musk deer and the civet cat? Think on these things...
Ilka Chase's first novel is the liveliest agitation of stamens and pistil since the last flowering of the night-blooming cereus. Like the heady perfumes of its heroine (a chrome-plated Manhattan cosmetician), In Bed We Cry derives its strength from a dash of civet. The plot is a triangle whose base is always broad, whose chief points are streamlined by agelessness...