Cypress Wood
Note Profile
About
Cypress wood is the steam-distilled wood oil of Cupressus sempervirens, CAS 86696-07-1. It is a different material from the branch-and-needle oil the published cypress note describes. It is dry, clean and woody, opening with a mild camphoraceous, pine-like lift. One supplier sells both organs and states the difference outright: the leaf oil is greener and sharper, the wood-derived oil is smoother and more persistent.
Scent Profile
Dry_woody first and by a distance - fresh, terpenic, clean, the smell of cut heartwood rather than of a hedge. A mild camphoraceous cooling_mentholic lift opens it, with a green pine edge that stays well under the leaf oil's. Under that sit light herbaceous tones and a resinous warmth, and one source adds a trace of lemon. A light bitterness runs through the whole thing and the 32 facets have no home for it.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Cupressus sempervirens, the Mediterranean cypress. Steam distillation of the wood itself, not of the leaves, twigs and small branches that yield the commoner cypress oil. The scent is strongest in freshly cut wood and stays noticeable in aged timber, which is also why the wood resists decay and insects.
Usage in Perfumery
A woody backbone rather than a featured note. Perfumers use it as a modifier in pine-needle compositions, citrus colognes, fougeres and chypres, where it gives dry structure without the sharp green edge of the leaf oil. Parfumo's placement data across 54 perfumes puts it in the base.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Cypress Wood
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Cypress Wood appears prominently.
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