Fossilised Amber

Note Profile

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About

Fossilised amber is the dark oil dry-distilled from fossil conifer resin. It smells nothing like the amber accord that borrowed its name. It is smoky first, with a tar-like, leathery body over dry, burnt wood and a faint pine-balsamic warmth. It is not sweet at all. The raw stone is near-odourless, so every odour description is of the distilled oil.

Scent Profile

Fossilised Amber smells smoky and resinous first, closer to pine tar and campfire smoke than to a sweet amber accord. A tar-like, leathery body runs under the smoke, close to birch tar, over dry, burnt wood. A faint pine-like green note and a balsamic warmth sit at the edges. It is not sweet at all, which is the main thing that separates it from the amber note that borrowed its name.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~36h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather

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

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can make Fossilised Amber from this natural extract.

Natural extract Amber oil (Oleum succini), fossilised

Smell words come from published sources.

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

Origin

Amber here means fossil conifer resin, such as Baltic succinite. Over millions of years the resin polymerised into a hard solid. Its volatile part is gone, and it will not dissolve in ethanol. Dry distillation, a controlled burn without air, breaks it down. It yields rosin, succinic acid and a dark, viscous oil sold as amber oil (Oleum succini). The crude oil is mostly hydrocarbons with some phenols. Oil on sale today is distilled in China and from Baltic amber.

Usage in Perfumery

Rare in modern perfumery. It is used in trace amounts in incense work and in dark, tarry base accords. In older practice it went into leather bases for men's colognes and aftershaves, with labdanum and castoreum, sweetened with cananga. It is too dry and tarry to lead a perfume on its own. It is not part of the usual amber accord of labdanum, benzoin and vanillin. When a perfume lists fossilised amber, check whether the brand means this oil or uses the name for an ordinary amber accord.