Kephalis

Note Profile

Molecule

About

Kephalis is a Givaudan captive turned catalogue molecule, CAS 36306-87-3, used as a long-lasting heart and base note. It smells warm, dry and woody with an ambery sweetness and a tobacco facet. The manufacturer and an independent trade source describe it the same way, which is unusual and is why the confidence here is higher than the two-source count alone would justify.

Scent Profile

Kephalis leads dry and woody, an old-wood character rather than a fresh sawn one. An amber-resinous warmth runs alongside it and carries most of the sweetness, giving the rich, rounded quality both trade sources name first. A tobacco-hay facet develops as it wears and is what separates it from the plain woody-ambers. There is a light herbal edge on top and a soft creamy-woody undertone, both minor.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~24h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather

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

What this is made of

kephalis

Names this molecule

CAS 36306-87-3

The note IS the molecule. Its own description states CAS 36306-87-3, which is the CAS on this material row.

How the layers join

Origin

4-(1-ethoxyethenyl)-3,3,5,5-tetramethylcyclohexanone, made synthetically and sold by Givaudan. It is also traded as Kephalis D, a dilution, which is the same material and not a separate note. It has no natural source. The Good Scents Company records its descriptors as amber, woody, old wood, tobacco and herbal, which matches both trade descriptions and adds the herbal facet neither of them names.

Usage in Perfumery

A workhorse in the woody-ambery base. Givaudan states it blends with jasmine, rose, violet and lavender as well as with ambery, woody-aldehydic, tobacco and masculine accords. It gives volume and persistence without the transparent, near-anosmic quality of Iso E Super, and its tobacco edge makes it useful under leather and dried-fruit accords. It is a structural material, not a signature one.