The Wonders of Amber: Perfumery Material of Soft, Oriental Character

Amber is a fit subject to tackle in the colder weather, if only because it's such an enveloping aura it creates. There are many misunderstandings about amber and hopefully we will dispel some of them here. Amber is a difficult term to describe in perfumery, simply because it has so many meanings as a word. Amber has additionally become a rather generic, all encompassing term, resulting in us being able to find all types of oils touted as "amber oil" in the market and sold online.

Essentially, there is no such thing as an amber essential oil. Essential oils are oils from plants in their purest form, distilled or otherwise extracted from a single plant species. Fragrant amber is a combination of several different botanical sources (or in ambergris’s case -which is a completely different material- a product of animal origin, more on which later). There is no one plant from which amber comes from, although some claim it comes from a special tree growing in the Himalayas. This is probably imaginative copy. Fir tree resin, in its regular, non-fossilised form is actually used in perfumery sometimes and offers a rather sweet, warm and deep smell that serves as a base to anchor the other ingredients that are placed on top of this less volatile ingredient. But it's not the usual reference.

The concept of "amber" on the whole is in fact an olfactory convention of the late 19th century and became a perfume "genre" at that time with the invention of vanillin (synthetic vanilla, as known from patisserie to most of us) added to the time-honored use of labdanum. This is for all practical purposes what we refer to as the "amber note": labdanum and vanillin.

"Ambery" is the general term -according to the French system - to describe the perfumes that fall in the oriental group and that have a warm, slightly powdery, erotic, animalic tonality in them ("parfums ambrés"). We could classify Shalimar, Obsession, Must de Cartier or Moschino for women (original) in that category. This doesn't have to do with the actual ingredients, it’s rather a figure of perfumery speech, although of course the perfumes of this category do include "ambery notes".
Please note however that NOT all "orientals" however are "ambery": the opoponax-based or balsamic/resinous fragrances in the Oriental spectrum (Opium or Youth Dew for instance) can eschew significant use of pure "amber bases" (see below for actual ingredients for this) in lieu of other accords within the variety of materials in hand. Simply put, the "oriental group" of fragrances is more encompassing than the "amber orientals".

The following materials do NOT have a relation with "amber" as the term in perfumery is used:

*A sort of "amber oil" comes from the Baltic amber; the fossilized resin from a prehistoric tree called Pinus Succinifera, a pine species. Amber dust is a by-product of the fossil amber industry (which caters for jewels) and the material renders an amber oil through a process called destructive distillation of fossilized amber. The oil yielded contains succinic acid which is useful in health products, however due to its uninviting aroma it’s useless in perfumery. Therefore there is no such thing as "amber fossil" used in perfumery.

*Ambrette seed is another ingredient often mixed up with amber that gives however a musk note in perfumes. Coming from the plant Hibiscus Abelmoschus , the seeds are distilled to give a waxy substance that is then treated with an alkaline medium to give finally the "absolute”. The smell is slightly musky and soft, warm, peachy and snugly; used in many luxury perfumes.

*Ambergris is the legendary ingredient often used in relation to "amber" (as ambra/amber appear shortened sometimes, since ambergris in French means “grey amber”).
Ambergris comes from a cured secretion from sperm whales; the whale secretes a substance to heal its stomach from the scratches of the cuttlefish it swallows when feeding. This gets out through the gastrointestinal system and is left floating on the ocean for years. The floating part is what gives it its characteristic slightly salty and warm , sensuous smell. It is animalic in a subtle way and retains its scent for centuries, just like musk.

So what actually goes into the production of amber and ambery perfumes, you might ask at this point.

The answer is two-fold.

Natural ingredients are used by natural perfumers to create an amber base without actual ambergris (and without synthetic vanillin, as per above), meaning a perfume base that smells warm, erotic and sensual or simply an oil mix.
Usually these include:

1.Labdanum: Cistus labdanum or rockrose is a gum resinoid from the common in the Mediterranean rockrose bush. In the past a long double rake (ladanisterion) was used to comb off the gum from the beards of goats grazing on the bushes, especially in Crete, Greece. It has been used in incense since antiquity. Today the twigs and leaves are boiled to yield the gum. The aroma is the closest thing to real ambergris in the plant kingdom.

2.Benzoin: A secretion of the tree Styrax tonkinense, a tropical asian tree, in the form of tears, which is secreted when the tree is injured. Two varieties exist; Siamese and Sumatran, the former drier and more powdery, the latter sweeter, more caramel like.
Its aroma is sweet and warm and evolves into powdery balsamic.

3.Styrax levant (Liquidamber orientalis): Another resinoid from a tree, it smells a bit like glue with a cinnamon edge. It is important in the creation of amber chords and has a rounding effect.

4.Natural vanilla extract from the Madagascar vanilla orchid can be used. (Perfumers dabbling in synthetics opt for vanillin instead)

Mandy Aftel in her book "Essence and Alchemy" suggests a simple "amber base" made from just three materials for the amateur perfumer: 30 drops of labdanum, 120 drops of benzoin, 6 drops of vanilla.
Usually other accent notes are used in amber chords to differentiate the result and make it unique, ergo the abundance of different "amber oils" in the market. Some of the usual ingredients to do so are vanilla, tonka bean, Peru balsam (sweet ambers), clove, cinnamon, Tolu balsam, sage, juniper (drier ambers), sandalwood, patchouli, olibanum (mysterious ambers), rose, jasmine or other flower essences in very small amount (more floral ambers).

The big perfume manufacturing companies (not the designers or the cosmetics companies who label their name on them, but those who get the “brief” and go in the lab to create them, such as Firmenich, IFF, Givaudan, Roure etc) have patented their own "synthetic ambers" for use in their perfume creations. It goes without saying that in order to find out what your favourite perfume contains you have to find out which company is responsible for its creation. Those "amber bases" (and please note that some lean onto "ambergris") fall into three categories:

1.True ambers: Those include Ambrarome Absolu by Synarome, Ambrogène by Roure, Ambergrissol by IFF, Ambré B.V. by De Laire and Fixateur 404 added to Grisambrol by Firmenich.
2.Ambers from labdanum: Those include Ambreinol and Ambregris Synthetique by Givaudan, Grisambrène by Firmenich, Ambre Synthetique by Naarden.
3.Pseudo amber (which is closer to opopponax resin really): Those include Ambre 53 by de Laire, Ambreine Samuelsom by Firmenich and Ambrène by R.Sondes.

New molecules are developed as we speak. For a modern and extremely popular synthetic that draws upon amber qualities refer to our article on Ambrox/Ambroxan, a woody amber note with great tenacity and diffusion.

The issue of amber is a fascinating one and hopefully some of the more obscure aspects of it have thus been illuminated. It is important to know what is at the core of a fragrance, however it is our nose and limbic system that finally makes the decision for us. So, wishes for a happy amber hunting!


This article used some data from the archives/catalogues of the perfume companies mentioned, Mandy Aftel’s "Essence and Alchemy", Eden Botanicals and Ayala’s "Smelly blog". Thanks to all.

War of the Worlds: naturals vs synthetics

The first half of my title today, which alludes to the famous H.G.Wells novel, is perhaps implying polemics of a greater magnitude. Still, it is hardly a small-scale issue.
Over the last decade a shocking realization dawned in the minds of most people. Ours was a polluted world, a world of decay and man-made confusion. A world in which Man had distanced himself from Nature.
The 90’s saw a growing concern about the environment, animal rights, the resources still available and the reversion to a way of life that would be purer and cleaner. Organic food, fair trade and a return to traditional techniques entered our vocabularies and our lives. Perfume was just one part of the equation that would go with the flow. Or would it?

Perfumes of yore have been changing their formulae over the past 2 decades at least (in many cases many more) substituting ingredients of a dubious origin with newer ones, usually of a synthetic nature.
The use of synthetic molecules is nothing new, of course. Jicky was the precursor of the modern perfume with its use of not one, but three synthetics (linalool, isolated from rosewood for the first time; coumarin isolated from the tonka bean; and vanillin of course) in 1889. Its success brought about the modernization of perfume as an art form and a new era dawned. Chanel #5 was the other great classic to make use of the aldehydic aroma-chemical family. In some cases it was necessity on the creative side that prompted the innovation brought by certain chemical molecules; gardenia or lily of the valley scents have to be created some other way, because the flower does not yield a satisfactory essence for perfumery. Milk is a note recreated in lactone, because it seemed like a nice, ground breaking idea at some point to include such a note in a composition.

Cut into today. The scarcity of certain ingredients, such as natural ambergris for example or the soon to be depleted natural sandalwood from India, as well as the ethical questions raised concerning the use of others still, such as the deer musk secretion and that of natural civet, have been only one of the factors that directed a new approach. The new guidelines of the European Union/IFRA and of the FDA dictated a substitution of ingredients which would pose a risk of allergic reactions or toxicity. Oakmoss is among them. So is birch tar and coumarin. Reasons of stability, longevity, unlimited possibilities and consistency also come into play for companies.
The issue is complex and companies rarely admit to the change for their own reasons, giving a rise to angered voices complaining of a cheapening of the formula (voices which are not always that educated themselves, I am afraid).
New launches have been proportionately bigger in synthetic ingredients than natural ones, of course. There are even perfumes composed entirely of synthetic ingredients, prompting Chandler Burr in his Synthetic No.5 article in the New York Times (Face, Aug.27) to hint that one very popular perfume is made so and the company is not letting him reveal the name because of the huge prejudice against synthetics in consumers’ minds.

Although I agree with his points made before that, namely that synthetics are expensive as well (sometimes even more so than naturals) and that the notion that natural equates safe while synthetic equates dangerous is not entirely true, I have to point out that this might explain the ignorance of an average consumer, but it does not stand up to a perfume lover’s scrutiny. And this is what Perfume Shrine is always striving to accomplish completely independently and non-strings-attached.

“Creating a perfume without them [synthetics] is like painting a picture without blues or reds. You could do it, but why?”

mr.Burr quips.

Personally I find this rather irrational. The spectrum is composed of 7 colours in the visible
end, which would make us think that therefore synthetics amount to 2/7 of the
total of possible smells. And yet, there are thousands of smells not yet experienced! A never ending journey into the compounds that make up our world and the worlds farther off in the cosmos. The human nose knows no boundaries in this quest. So it would be a little presumptuous to declare that synthetics, man-made substances, have the ability to encompass almost 30% of all smells.

The following quote is also a bit over the edge to me:

“every great scent, from Armani to Gaultier to Lauren, is built on them [synthetics]”.

Not to dwell on the fact that the afore-mentioned houses have not produced that many great scents (because that might be just my personal opinion), but to imply that only the use of synthetics accounts for the production of a great scent rules out centuries of masterpieces that have been maybe lost on us.

There is another prejudice, I am afraid; that one is on the part of perfume experts ~and non-experts alike~ regarding natural perfumers. Some aromatherapists started blending simple perfumes from essential oils about a decade or so back. Those of course were not proper perfumes but alloys for the enhancement of an experience in a spa or meditation. Then, Mandy Aftel wrote Essence and Alchemy which spawned the interest in natural perfumes. Natural perfumers are not aromatherapists, who use aromas for their beneficial use on the mind and body. They just like the aesthetics of natural ingredients and have a greater appreciation of nature’s complexity. They use concretes and absolutes that aromatherapists don't use, not to mention that they study classical perfume structure. Seems pretty valid to me. The main objection of perfume experts has always been that it would be difficult to manipulate natural essences, because they can be multi-nuanced and changing from batch to batch, and to coax them to comply with the given objective in the creative process. Natural perfumery has only got to prove that it can and the proof would be in the pudding, so to speak.

To cut a long story short, the issue is not easily resolved and there should be no aphorism uttered about either naturals or synthetics in my mind.
In the interests of keeping things on a balance however I have embarked on the appreciation of certain natural perfumes, three of which produced by Anya’s Garden I will go on to review shortly. So stay tuned!



Pic from the Girbaud controversial campaign.