Exaltolide®

Note Profile

Molecule

About

Exaltolide is a macrocyclic musk lactone and one of the softest musks in use. Scentspiracy calls it intense, sweet, soft, skin-like, ambrette, floral and musky. Arctander, quoted by Perfume Extract, calls it delicately animal, musky and sweet, with an extremely tenacious odour of outstanding uniformity. Both readings stress evenness. It is a musk that sits on skin rather than one that announces itself.

Scent Profile

Clean_musk is the material and every source leads with it. Sweet_vanillic is the word that appears in all four descriptor strings on file - Scentspiracy's sweet, Perfume Extract's Sweet at the head of its undiluted list, and Arctander's musky and sweet. Powdery is named twice by Perfume Extract, once undiluted and once at 10 per cent, which is two readings of the same facet at two strengths. Animalic is Arctander's delicately animal and the Animal that appears second in the dilute list. It is held below the musk deliberately: both sources qualify the animal reading as delicate or soft, and neither calls it dirty. Below the naming line, floral and fruity are Scentspiracy's floral and ambrette undertones and its slightly fruity-musky, given as traces because both sources call them undertones rather than character. Dry_woody is the Woody that closes Perfume Extract's undiluted list. Aromatic_herbal is the Herbal in its reading of the standard grade. Lactonic is a low, wide guess from the molecule being a macrolactone - no source names a creamy or lactonic character, so the number stays small and the spread stays open.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~42h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather

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

Origin

Made synthetically. CAS 106-02-5, the 16-membered macrolactone this repository holds as the material oxacyclohexadecan-2-one, also called pentadecanolide. Exaltolide is the Firmenich, now dsm-firmenich, trade name, and it is also sold as Exaltolide Total and as Macrolide Supra. The same lactone occurs in angelica root oil, which is the chemical reason that root reads musky where the seed does not.

Usage in Perfumery

A base note and a fixative, valued for tenacity as much as for its own smell. Scentspiracy calls it a true olfactive modulator that improves wearability and diffusion on skin, gives its blotter life as up to two weeks, and names a synergy with Musk T. Dose decides what you hear: undiluted listings lead with sweet, powdery, musk and woody, while a 10 per cent dilution in DPG reads musk, animal, powdery, natural and fruity. Attested on 3 Fragrantica note listings and 2 Parfumo placements across 1 brand.