Laurissilva Forest
Note Profile
About
Laurissilva is the humid laurel forest of Macaronesia. It is a place, not a distilled material. Only two sources describe how it smells and neither is a fragrance house. A travel account names damp earth and old laurel leaf under a moss-covered canopy. A Madeira candle names the forest aroma, then marine notes and flowers beside it. So the vector leads on wet earth and green leaf with moss behind, holds a laurel-leaf herbal facet, and keeps the marine and floral facets low. The whole vector carries spreads of 0.20 to 0.26 because two sources of this kind cannot fix a number.
Scent Profile
Earthy leads on the one direct smell claim found: 'the air is thick with the scent of damp earth and ancient laurel'. It is set below forest-floor's 0.70 because that note is humus and nothing else, while here the earth shares the frame with living leaf. Green is the laurel canopy of a forest the source calls very humid, and it sits well under forest-foliage and green-forest because no source here describes crushed leaf or cut branch. Mossy_chypre is the 'moss-covered trees' the same sentence names, and it is the highest mossy value of the four published forest notes for that reason. Aromatic_herbal is the laurel itself. Lauraceae leaf reads bay-like, and the published laurel note carries aromatic_herbal, so this is the parent trait held back one step because no source describes the leaf of this forest directly. Dry_woody is the trunks and standing timber, inferred not stated. Aquatic_ozonic has two supports that are both weak: the forest is defined by permanent cloud moisture, and the one commercial product pairs it with marine notes. Read that pairing carefully. The candle copy lists marine notes as combined WITH the laurissilva aroma, not as part of it, so this facet is held at a quarter rather than led on. Cooling_mentholic and floral sit below the naming bar for the same reason: laurel leaf carries camphor in every related published note, and the candle names flowers, but neither claim is made about this forest by anyone.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Laurissilva is a very humid subtropical forest of trees in the Lauraceae family. It is endemic to Macaronesia: Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. The Madeira laurissilva is the largest surviving stand. No supplier sells an oil under this name. The note is a place assembled from what grows in it, chiefly laurel-family leaf, moss, wet leaf litter and wet basalt.
Usage in Perfumery
One attestation in the Fragrantica note vocabulary and none in Parfumo. The only commercial use found is a Madeira-themed candle from A Vida Portuguesa, which sets the forest aroma alongside marine notes and island flowers. Treat it as a damp-green forest base for place-led compositions. It is not the same brief as forest-floor, which is leaf mould and humus with no leaf and no sea.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Laurissilva Forest
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Laurissilva Forest appears prominently.
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