Oak Bark

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Oak bark is the bark tissue of Quercus, sold as a CO2 extract, and it is not the same material as the oak note. Oak in this vocabulary is barrel wood and reads sweet and lactonic. Oak bark reads dry, tannic, leathery and smoky. It is the outside of the tree, not the inside of the cask.

Scent Profile

Dry_woody leads and both supplier listings put it first: 'deep woody, smoky, resinous notes' and 'woody, leathery, smoky, balsamic'. Smoky is named in every descriptive sentence either supplier writes, and one of them ties it to a cause: 'the high tannin content... contributes to its astringent, slightly smoky aroma'. Leather is stated twice, once as a base note in its own right and once in the four-word summary. Amber_resinous covers 'resinous', 'balsamic' and 'smoky resin', which the two listings use interchangeably. Earthy is 'warm forest floor' and 'forest soil'. Mossy_chypre is 'mossy undertones', and it is scored low for its prominence in the copy because the mossy character of the oak tree properly belongs to oakmoss, a separate organism and a separate note. Below the named line: warm_spice and aromatic_herbal for 'subtle spice' and 'herbal-woody complexity', sweet_vanillic for 'subtly sweet' and the balsamic read, boozy for 'aged oak barrels', and a small sour with mineral carrying the tannin astringency, which this vocabulary has no facet for. Green is 'fresh-cut bark'. Tobacco_hay is held and not raised, because the tobacco backnote in the evidence belongs to Eden Botanicals' wood-chip absolute and not to bark.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~18h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather

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

Origin

Botanica Gaia sells two Quercus CO2 extracts that state 'Parts Used: Barks'. One is a wax, one an absolute. Both are made from bark tissue rather than the heartwood chips that Eden Botanicals uses for its oakwood absolute, and that difference in plant part is the whole reason this note is separate. Oakmoss is a third thing again. It is Evernia prunastri, a lichen that grows on oak bark, so it shares a substrate with this note and nothing else. Premiere Peau's oak entry does not describe bark on its own at all. It names bark only as the surface oakmoss lives on.

Usage in Perfumery

A dark base material for forest, chypre and leather accords. Two Parfumo placements across two brands and none on Fragrantica, so this is a rare name rather than shared vocabulary. Its use is to give an oak reference that is tannic and astringent instead of sweet, which is what a formula needs when the barrel-and-whiskey reading of oak would be wrong.