Aged Wood
Note Profile
About
Old timber rather than a species. Dry, dusty wood with an earthy mustiness from lignin breaking down over years, and no char.
Scent Profile
Dry_woody leads because every source describes an effect on timber rather than the smell of one tree. Olfactive Aesthetics calls the Karanal impression "bone-dry, dusty-woody, resinous, earthy" and Eden Botanicals calls the oakwood absolute "a smooth, earthy, sweet wood aroma". It sits above tree-bark 0.62 and below oak 0.88, because this is timber that has lost its volatiles, not fresh heartwood. Earthy is the one claim all four sources make. WoodRio gives the mechanism, lignin degrading into compounds read as "earthy, musty, or slightly sweet", and WhatScent reaches for "sun-baked earth". Mineral and powdery together carry the dust, the "salty, dusty aura reminiscent of sun-bleached driftwood" that Olfactive Aesthetics names. They are held below driftwood's mineral because that note has the sea in it and this one has a shelf. Sweet_vanillic is the soft vanilla of oak staves and of degraded lignin. It is capped well under oaken-barrel 0.58 because only one source carries it and that source is oak-specific. Amber_resinous is the resinous half of the Karanal reading, "resinous" and "fossilized resin" in the same sentence. Smoky and not zero. No source claims char, and the absence of char is what separates this note from burning-wood 0.85 and charred-wood 0.90, but a musty old wood is not a claim that smoke is impossible. Leather and tobacco_hay come from Eden Botanicals' "faint leather and tobacco backnotes" and are marked faint by the source itself. Boozy and mossy_chypre follow the same page's "vintage oak casks, peat moss... and a snifter of cognac", kept low because they belong to the cask and not to aged wood in general.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Not one material. Two things are sold under the phrase. Olfactive Aesthetics ties it to Karanal (amber dioxane), a synthetic whose effect it calls "bone-dry, dusty-woody, resinous, earthy" and an "aged wood" or "fossilized ambergris" impression. Eden Botanicals grounds the same idea in a natural: an oakwood absolute made in France from oak chips left over from barrel-making, wood that is "dried and aged for over a year before barrel production begins". WoodRio gives the general mechanism for old wood in furniture and buildings, the slow breakdown of lignin releasing compounds read as "earthy, musty, or slightly sweet".
Usage in Perfumery
A base note and a fixative. Three Parfumo listings across two brands, no Fragrantica attestation. It is used to age a woody base, in modern amber-woody accords and in leather and tobacco compositions where fresh-cut wood would read too bright.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Aged Wood
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Aged Wood appears prominently.
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