Any of a few species who can be infected by the mold that causes the production of oud. Unaffected trees are processed to give us agarwood which is very woody jungle spice flower without the overtop funk of oud.

A very early discovery of fragrance chemists, aldehydes recall a deco world when used as the main thrust of a fragrance. More often we employ aldehydes to lift heavy hearts, recall fresh breezes/air around flowers, or to push the boundaries of space in forward thinking compositions. Aldehydes generally have a stratospherically fresh aroma, with shades of metal, citrus, green, or ozone.

Almond is a building block of many perfumes. It’s useful in tree flowers of the cherry family and can recall sweets, old fashioned soap & perfumes.

A catch all term for tree resins that smell vanillic-balsamic. Most have been with us for thousands of years partly because they can be used with very minimal processing (i.e., pick off tree, light on fire).

The scent of ambergris is the other main base note of perfumery. No one uses the real stuff (sea cured whale vomit worth its weight in gold and illegal in the U.S.) anymore. Instead we have a host of molecules that make up its aroma—stratospherically powerful woody amber aromas that fix modern perfumes. Their power will make your teeth chatter. Desert island stuff like ambrox, cetalox, and ambrocenide.

Pure plant-based musk beauty. Painstakingly extracted from a hibiscus plant, ambrette is exorbitantly expensive. Adds realness & petal freshness to all perfumes. A natural “skin” aroma—soft, oily, umami & fatty with a heart like the inner wet parts of flowers & animals. Blends with anything, especially flowers, ouds, ozones, & citrus. It smells delicately peachy and vegetal (like the best tomato soup) and lasts 4-eva.

Soft and powdery, ambrox and its cousin ambroxan all but created the scent of the 90s (when added to ozonic materials like Calone and Melonal). Ambrox smells fine and pure, like a clean slightly green ambergris. Boney, marine, wonderful.

A familair fruit with tart, floral-peachy sweetness. In perfumes, it has a touch more sophistication than peach. Fun!

Atlas Cedar is a stinky cat litter cedar in the best way. It smells hairy and wild. It can be molecularly distilled to take away some of the funk, but retains its fruity orange vibes.

When it rains in the Chihuahuan desert, poplar balsam's release their quixotic aroma of spiced amber-cinnamon and cypress-pine. It is an intense aroma that feels religious.

Basil is fascinatingly complex. The more you sniff, the more shades of aroma are observed. Beside its obvious fresh green gourmandness, basil has a strong spicy bite like cloves that make it useful in building accords of flowers like carnation, wisteria, narcissus, and anything frosty like lily.

The extract of bell pepper is an entirely new material to the perfumer's palette. It was released by Firmenich in 2021 and gives us a very unique fresh, bitter green heart note. It is vegetal but soft and watery with overtones of Earth.

A prime amber. Used in folk medicine for thousands of years, the extract of Styrax Tonkinensis (Siam Benzoin) is brown with soft pink notes of fine sugar, maple, powdery gourmand vanilla, and shades of cinnamon and dry tobacco.

Birch leaves are green & fresh with a fun fruitness. They are dewy and recall Russian baths & forest libations.

Deep spicy smoke campfire. Some varieties smell of hot tires and asphalt.

Also called bigrade, this oil is pressed or distilled from the fruit of the same tree that gives us orange blossoms. It is juicy and ahem, bitter and sings in the top of fragrances with a European flair.

Dark berries with a rich aggressive vegetal bite and winey fruity sage aroma. Mysterious.

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Smoky deep meaty wood. Bacon conifer. Rich. Can be used to smell of faraway winter blazes. Can be cleaned for use in oak accords and leather.

Green piney spice with sweet eucalyptus vibes. A gourmand note common in Indian and Nordic deserts.

A spicy flower with a deep powdery heart like pink sugar.

South American wood that smells of fine teak, pepper, and roses. Extremely rare and expensive, but probably one of the five best smelling single oils on the planet.

We only use synthetic reconstitutions for ethical reasons. Castoreum smells like wolves’ bait used in trapping—which is to say fermented feces and leather tanning. The synthetic is decidedly more leather—richer dark brown and mahogany. Fancy jazz age elegance, horses, upholstery, gloves, cars.

This molecule is everywhere. It is beautiful and powdery and like ambrox can be used for almost everything. Ambroxan has a greener herbal (minty) shade in the drydown compared to Ambrox.

An accord of chili pepper is achieved with dry earthy materials, red ambers, and touches of spice.

The Mediterranean shrub rock rose is called “cistus” when the whole plant is distilled or extracted. The same plant produces a resin perfumers readily use called “labdanum” which is oft made into an absolute. Cistus distilled is a spicy leathery amber top note. Labdanum is spicy and herbaceous (dill), with a more animalic-conifer overtone than other ambers. Essential to the perfume genre “chypre” (bergamot, oakmoss, labdanum).

A wild herb native to the Mediterranean reportedly used to cure weird eye situations in older times. Its powdery green airy herbaceousness recalls grasslands and gardens.

Dark spice that contains eugenol —an important frosty building block to many flowers such as rose, lily, and carnation. 90s cool kid cigarette vibes too.

Clover is grassy green, but its flower smells like wet frosty white flowers in the breeze. An absolute of the plant is hay-like and sugary.

A ubiquitous aroma to most of the world, the roasted quality of coffee is interesting if not dominating in gourmand fragrances. Coffee flower oil is a buttery tropical aroma like dark ylang. Very rare.

An iconic European construction that perfectly balances citrus (often lemon, bergamot, orange), flower waters (neroli, rose), and herbs (rosemary, lavender). Light, fresh, coastal airs.

An accord that brings teeth rattling woody ambers together with silky metallic musks. Brutalist fumes!)

I’m fascinated with the idea of Occidental Ambers, as we often associate amber with the east. Since many balsamic and resinous trees thrive in tropical weather, we can find many such plants in the Caribbean, Central and South America. Many of these resins (palo santon cabreuva, cascarilla) display woodier characteristics and would not necessarily be categorized as an “amber”. However, Copaiba Balsam distilled from the resin of the Copaifera Officinalus tree works as a “white amber” with its peppery dry musky aroma.

A common desert shrub that smells oily green and a bit like gasoline. Also smells like desert rain—a sinewy shrubby petrichor over hot sand.