Myrica

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Myrica is bog myrtle, Myrica gale, a low shrub of northern bogs and wet heath. The note is sweet and resinous with an earthy, mossy floor under it, then dry wood and a light spice. Fragrantica files it with resins and balsams even though the material comes from foliage.

Scent Profile

Amber_resinous is the dominant facet and the only one with a source that is not a blog. Wikipedia states 'the foliage has a sweet resinous scent'. Fragrantica's own grouping of the note under resins and balsams agrees with that reading. Earthy and mossy_chypre both come from one community source, Perfume Nez, writing on bayberry: 'earthy richness and subtle sweetness' and 'imagine the scent of moss-covered ground and fallen leaves'. Dry_woody is the same source's 'woody resilience'. Aromatic_herbal is the weakest number in this file and I am naming it as such. No source calls Myrica herbal. I put it there because the material is a foliage oil from an aromatic bog shrub, and zeroing a facet because my sources did not mention it would be asserting an absence nobody claimed. Its spread, the widest here. Warm_spice is Perfume Nez's 'unique, sweet, and slightly spicy aroma'. Green is the fallen-leaf half of the same moss-and-leaves image. Sweet_vanillic carries the 'subtle sweetness' that is not already inside the resin.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~5h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Woody & Earthy

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

Origin

Myrica gale is native to cool temperate wetlands across Eurasia and North America. Wikipedia records that 'the foliage has a sweet resinous scent and is a traditional insect repellent, used by campers to keep biting insects out of tents', and that the plant 'is used variously in perfumery and as a condiment'. The genus also holds Myrica cerifera, the North American bayberry, whose fruit wax gives the bayberry candle its smell. Trade and blog sources writing about 'bayberry' odour do not say which species or which plant part they mean.

Usage in Perfumery

Attested in 12 Fragrantica perfumes and none on Parfumo. Fragrantica groups it with resins and balsams. Use it in the heart where a sweet-resinous green is wanted that is neither a bright citrus herb nor a gum resin. It is not interchangeable with Myrtle or with Bay Rum, both of which are published and both of which are different plants.