California Bay Laurel

Note Profile

Botanical

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About

California bay laurel is the crushed leaf of Umbellularia californica. It is not the culinary bay of the kitchen. It smells sharply camphoraceous first, with a bay-like herbal body under it.

Scent Profile

California Bay Laurel smells sharply of camphor when the leaf is crushed. Underneath runs a herbal body like Mediterranean bay leaf, only stronger. A faint warm spice runs through the camphor. It carries the raw, green snap of a leaf crushed in the hand, sharper and rawer than the kitchen bay it is compared to.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeTop · ~2h lasting

Family Fresh & Citrus, Green & Aromatic

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 California Bay Laurel from materials such as:

Umbellulon minty · balsamic

Smell words come from published sources.

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

Origin

Umbellularia californica, Lauraceae, an evergreen tree of the California Coast Ranges and southern Oregon. The California Native Plant Society names the compound and the concentration: the leaves 'contain up to 40% umbellulone, an aromatic ketone compound'. Umbellulone is not the dominant compound of Laurus nobilis oil, so this is a different genus with a different lead chemical, not a regional cut of the published 'laurel' or 'bay-leaf'. The tree also goes by pepperwood, Oregon myrtle, myrtlewood and headache tree.

Usage in Perfumery

A hard camphoraceous top accent. Attested on 2 Parfumo entries across 2 brands and absent from Fragrantica, so it is a Parfumo-side term with low usage. No perfumery supplier or trade house page describing a California bay laurel oil for fragrance use could be reached, so its working position is read from the plant rather than from a bottle.