Hazelnut Wood

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Hazelnut wood is hazel timber, and the evidence for how it smells is one forum thread that contradicts itself. A bonsai grower reported a freshly trimmed branch as 'bitter and green', but he never confirmed the tree was a hazel, only that it was 'very possibly' one. A second poster who is certain he cut hazel branches for bows as a child 'never noticed any kind of weird smell'. No timber-trade, analytical or perfumery source describing Corylus avellana wood odour was found. The vector is therefore faint on purpose, and the spreads are wide enough to cover the possibility that the wood has almost no smell at all.

Scent Profile

Dry_woody leads and it is scored from the referent rather than from any description, because no source describes this timber. It matches the published arbutus-wood, which sits for the same reason. Green is the only positive odour claim on record anywhere: 'more bitter and green if that makes sense', said about a freshly cut branch. It is held to 0.26 rather than higher for three reasons. The speaker never confirmed the tree was a hazel. The claim is about green sapwood, not seasoned timber. And the only person in the thread who was certain he was cutting hazel reported no smell at all. Nutty is deliberately small and deserves a sentence, because the name invites a much larger number. Nothing attests it. Both sources engage the question of what hazel wood smells like and neither says nutty, and the published hazelnut note's warmth is roasted-kernel chemistry, filbertone and Maillard pyrazines, which a living tree does not have. It is not zero only because the published almond-tree-wood carries nutty on trade testimony, so a hazel analogue is plausible, and the spread spans zero. Earthy is the damp cut-wood edge implied by the same green-branch testimony. Every other facet is zero because no source names one, not because anyone reported an absence.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~10h lasting

Origin

The wood of Corylus avellana, the common hazel. Hazel is coppiced for thin poles, hurdles, bean sticks and walking sticks rather than sawn as timber, so what little testimony exists is about green, freshly cut branch wood and not about dried heartwood. That matters, because green wood is the register in which many species smell of something and dried wood is often flat. No source separates bark, sapwood and heartwood. No supplier selling a hazel wood oil or extract was found.

Usage in Perfumery

Attested 3 times on Parfumo across 3 brands, and absent from Fragrantica. Three separate brands is real usage, so the term is not a one-brand artefact. It sits with the other faint-timber notes already published, arbutus-wood and amaranth-wood, where the sources agree the wood carries little or no characteristic smell. Treat it as a term perfumers print rather than a material with a documented odour profile.