Choya Ral

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Dry, charred smoke with a leathery grip and a sweet resinous warmth under it.

Scent Profile

Smoky leads and holds the whole material: dry, charred, phenolic, the smell of something taken past burning in a sealed pot. Two facets sit level under it. Leather is a real tanned-hide grip rather than a smoke artefact, called a 'genuine leathery quality' by Fraterworks. Amber_resinous is the sweet balsamic warmth that survives the char, an 'amber-like depth' that the Fragrantica prose also records as a 'delicate amber undertone'. Creamy_woody is the facet that separates this from the rest of the choya family: every comparing source reaches for a milky sandalwood softness under the carbon, the 'ghost of sandalwood sweetness'. Dry_woody carries the timber that the sweetness sits on. Mineral is an ashy, stony edge that Fraterworks calls 'ancient and primal'. Sweet_vanillic is the burnt-sugar sweetness of charring, thinner than the amber and easily lost. A trace of earthy and animalic sits at the bottom.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~28h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather

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

Origin

A dry-distillation (pyrolysis) oil from India. A solid raw material is sealed in a vessel and heated until it chars, and the condensate is collected. It is one of three choya materials made the same way: choya nakh from seashells, choya loban from frankincense resin, and choya ral. Sources disagree on what ral itself is made from. Premiere Peau's glossary says sandalwood heartwood. Fraterworks says the starting material is a balsamic resin rather than wood or bark, and the Fragrantica placement under 'Resins and balsams' agrees with that reading. The name most likely points to sal resin (Shorea robusta), called ral in Hindi, but no fetched source here states it, so the botanical origin is left open.

Usage in Perfumery

A base-note smoke material used in small amounts. It sits in oud compositions, incense accords and leather bases, where it supplies char without the tar-and-cade bitterness. 22 Fragrantica placements and 9 Parfumo placements across 7 brands.