Description and usage notes: Ethylene brassylate is a macrocyclic musk, like most of those found in nature, it is exceptionally tenacious and a good fixative. It plays well with other musks and is probably best used in combination. One of the cheaper musks but don’t despise it for that – it is the essential workhorse of the musks – but no less beautiful for it.  It gives added sweetness and floral reinforcement. Arctander, writing in the 1960s, says that “This cyclic ester was introduced into perfumery only a few decades ago, and has grown to become one of the most important musk chemicals to the perfumer. After many years as a captive chemical and at a very high cost, it has reached almost every perfumers shelf and is available at less than one-sixth of the original cost. It is used extensively in perfumery as a ftxative and intensifier of sweet-floral notes. One very well-known fragrance type contains an unusually large proportion of this ester with Undecanolide as one of its companions. This combination results in quite unusual lasting qualities of that perfume type. So much that some people dislike it just for that reason. Ethylene brassylate has a perceptible effect usually at concentrations starting below one percent in the perfume base or oil. Normal use- concentration is about 0.5 to 3.0 percent. It is stable in soap and does not cause discoloration. Poorer grades of this ester tend to develop fatty-rancid, almost Castor-oil-like off odors upon ageing.”   He goes on to mention that it “It finds use as an ageing or ‘maturing’ agent in alcohol for perfume solution purposes.”  See also Zenolide for an alternative macrocyclic musk that is also very well priced.  "