Acacia Wood

Note Profile

Botanical

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About

Acacia wood is a soft, dry woody base with a resinous floor. It is not one material. Acacia is a genus of nearly a thousand species and the timbers do not share a smell: two of the three named in the sources have no characteristic odour at all, a third smells of raspberry jam when cut, and the resin and bark are burned as incense. What perfumers put in the bottle under this name is unrecorded.

Scent Profile

Acacia wood is a quiet, dry wood with a resinous floor, more a soft guess at timber than a loud statement. Underneath the wood sits a faint incense warmth, like bark and resin held to a flame. There is a whisper of raspberry jam from the cut heartwood, and a faint violet powderiness some describe in the leaf and bark. The whole note stays gentle, closer to a plain, quiet wood than a rich one.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~14h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

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Origin

Acacia is a genus of nearly a thousand species split across Africa and Australia. The Wood Database records no characteristic odour for Gidgee, Acacia cambagei, and none for Australian blackwood, Acacia melanoxylon. Acacia acuminata is sold as 'raspberry jam wood' and is named for the fruity smell it gives off when cut. Dryland Australian acacias are reported, without measurement, to carry a floral violet-like smell in leaf and bark rather than in heartwood. Separately, acacia bark, roots and resin are burned as ritual incense in Nepal, India, China and Tibet. No manufacturer or trade source gives a GC or an olfactive sheet for acacia wood as a commercial perfumery material.

Usage in Perfumery

7 Parfumo placements across 5 brands, none on Fragrantica. Parfumo records the note in 16 perfumes between 1995 and 2023 and says it usually sits in the base. Some of those releases use 'acacia' to mean an acacia-wood cask the alcohol was aged in, which is a different referent again and would push the note towards boozy and oaky rather than resinous.