Black Ambergris

Note Profile

Animal 4 perfumes

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About

Black ambergris is the darkest grade of ambergris. Black usually marks the least weathered material, and that smells stronger and rawer than the grey or white grades: faecal, animalic and marine. Colour is not a fixed grade, though. Some black pieces have aged for decades and smell earthy, salty and sweet. Those aged pieces are the ones used in black ambergris perfumes.

Scent Profile

Black ambergris smells raw and animal, with a faecal edge in fresh material. A damp, earthy note runs as strongly as the marine one, more wet shoreline and salt water than clean sea air. Under it sit a faint amber warmth, a salty mineral trace and a soft, musky base.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~42h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Fresh & Citrus, Woody & Earthy

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

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ScentArt

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can build Black Ambergris from materials such as:

Ambroxide labdanum · ambergris · cedar

Smell words come from published sources.

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

Origin

Ambergris forms in the digestive tract of the sperm whale and is expelled at sea. Fresh or lightly weathered pieces are black to dark brown and waxy. Salt water, air and sunlight oxidise the material over months or years, lightening it through brown and grey to pale or white and softening the smell. Black is the start of that process, not a separate substance. Colour is a clue to maturation, not a fixed grade, and individual pieces vary.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as a fixative and a base note, often tinctured or infused over weeks. Artisan oud houses use aged black ambergris for an earthy, salty, animalic-marine depth that pale ambergris lacks. It is very strong and is used in small amounts.