Fragrance Families : AMBER

FRAGRANCE FAMILIES : AMBER



Most of these Amber ingredients have strong historical and Biblical connections - which means spiritual connotations. Next to the woods and leathers - I simply love these smells - they really do touch my spirit.

BENZOIN

Alias Styrax tonkinensis - benzoin is a gum/resin which is produced from solvent extraction and occurs naturally in Laos, Indonesia, China.

Its history is pretty confusing and scrambled and all I could really make sense of was that the resin when burned is fairly toxic and that it was used during the harvest of frankincense to drive the venomous snakes away .

It has a sweet, spicy, warm , balsamic, woody note. It has many similarities to Vanilla which also gives it a caramel, milky odour and that means it can also be found in the Gourmand Fragrance family.

Benzoin oil  is pretty powerful and can overwhelm a perfume if not used with discretion and caution.It can be used as a heart or base note and is decribed as balsamic, spicy and incense like.

FRANKINCENSE

Boswellia cartii is also known as Olibanum or Frankincense. It is an olearesin and the gum is obtained by slashing the bark of the tree with a panga and allowing it to bleed and harden. these hardened drops of gum are also called "tears " . 

One of the three precious gifts given to the baby Jesus by the wise men , frankinsence has been traded for over 5000 years  and has powerful Biblical references . In Malachi 1:11 it implies that the odour of frankincense is the pure odour of the Divine God.

The BBC video series on sourcing Frankincense was extremely evocative and made me want to jump on a camel and head into the mountains of Somalia  and Oman to find my own.

 It comes from the resin or tears which form on the Boswellia tree which is highly endangered and grows at high inaccessible altitudes and extremely unforgiving conditions .

The resin/tears are steam distilled to capture the fragrance oil. Or the resin is burned directly over hot coals to free the beautiful mystical fragrance.

It is a raw material which evokes mysticism, ritual, and spiritulism.the citrussy confir undertones are unmistakable when comparing to the other resins in the Amber family. It can be a top note, but also a base note.The fir/pine notes seem to emerge more and more into the second hour.

LABDANUM

Spain ,  Portugal , North Africa , and Egypt are home to this lovely rock rose /cistus plant which produces through steam distillation and boiling of its leaves and branches, to release the resin and produce a glorious warm, rich, complex , woody amber fragrance. you would not expect it from such a plant with thin papery flowers !

In ancient times, labdanum was collected by combing the beards of the goats and sheep with a small wooden rake that had leather thongs for teeth. The animals would graze among the rock rose plants and the resin would accumulate on their fur.

It is also a Biblical fragrance mentioned twice in the Book of Genesis where it refers to labdanum being carried from Egypt to Palestine.Scholars believe that the mysterious ingredient in the Holiest of Incense which is mentioned in Exodus 30:34-36 as onycha - is actually labdanum.

Its fragrance has been referred to as dry musk, animalic, sweet, woody , leathery and ambergris. It is said that labdanum closely resembles ambergris ( whale vomit )  which makes it tenacious in a fragrance.

It is tricky to use as it is a thick black viscous goo which becomes brittle with age.

I really like a fellow colleague ( Maxine 's )  description : " Drying down reveals tendrils of smoke wafting into the air that are still distinctly resinous, ritualistic, conjuring impressions of an orthodox church, comforting in its permanence, captivating, earth-bound, recalling sounds of Gregorian chants; medieval." 

MYRRH

Myrrh comes from a specific species of Commiphora tree found in Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia , Kenya, East Africa- Commiphora Myrrha.It comes from the tree actually bleeding from a wound - which makes it a little sad to use. 

The gum is waxy and coagulates quickly turning hard and glossy with time. It is yellowish in colour and may even be clear or opaque. It darkens deeply with age.

Myrrh is  an oleo resin ( natural gum ) which is burnt on hot coals or steam distilled.

 Like Frankincense, it was one of the very precious gifts given to the baby Christ by the three wise men, and in the Bible is referred to as the Balm of Gilead.It was used during the ancient Egyptian embalming of the dead rituals

It is also an ingredient in the holy annointing oil of the Tabernacle high priests in the Bible.Used also for Kings and Queens as a purifcation ritual as we read in the Book of Esther 2:12 where it was used to purify King Ahasuerus.

It was romantically traded out of the Nabatean kingdom of Petra in Jordan.

It definitely has a mushroom like quality which seems to emerge more into hour two.

The myrrh that I have is really not great quality and has very little fragrance sadly. It has got woody balsamic resiny sweet notes , but also that musty mushroom fungus damp quality.

VANILLA

Vanilla sits in the Amber Family but seems to belong more distinctly in the Gourmand group. Just recently I received three huge bundles of vanilla pods from Mauritius and have spent hours deseeding them for the tinctures and infusions. I am all vanilla'd out at this stage. 

It is a sweet warm powdery note which can sit in the heart or the base.