Herbal

Angelica Root

Note Profile

Botanical 11 perfumes

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About

Angelica root is the plant material that behaves like an animal product. Steam distilled from dried Angelica archangelica root, it smells earthy and musky, with a gentle skin-like animalic warmth that no other herb has. The musk is real chemistry, not metaphor: the oil contains pentadecanolide, a macrocyclic musk lactone sold on its own as a synthetic musk.

Scent Profile

Earthy first and hardest - damp forest floor, root cellar, celery-earth. A clean macrocyclic musk sits right beside it and is described perceptually as warm and skin-like, so an animalic reading runs through the whole material. Warm herbaceous depth, a peppery-green opening from phellandrene and a soft fresh-spice bite complete the top. An amber-like sweetness reminiscent of ambrette seed, a little dry wood, a sweet-herbal coumarin trace and the faint warmth of a worn leather glove close it.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~28h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather, Green & Aromatic

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

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can make Angelica Root from this natural extract.

Natural extract Angelica root oil herbaceous · peppery · musky

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use this material, or something else.

Origin

The dried roots of Angelica archangelica, two to three years old at harvest, steam distilled at a yield of 0.3 to 1 per cent. The roots must be dried first; fresh root gives a different and less useful oil. Grown mainly around Niort in France, and in Germany and Hungary. Alpha-phellandrene carries the peppery-green top, phthalides the celery-earth quality, and pentadecanolide the musk.

Usage in Perfumery

One of perfumery's great natural fixatives, used at 0.5 to 2 per cent. It anchors chypres beside oakmoss and patchouli, adds herbal-amber complexity to fougeres, and gives oriental bases a warm, almost animalic floor. A trace in a citrus cologne adds depth and lasting power without announcing itself. It substitutes for costus, and it overwhelms a blend above 3 to 4 per cent.