Tonalide®

Note Profile

Molecule

About

A polycyclic musk that is dusty rather than laundered. Soft and very persistent, with dry wood, a warm ambery weight and an earthy floor under the musk.

Scent Profile

Clean_musk leads and both sources put musk first, one calling it a 'soft, persistent musky odor'. It is not scored higher because both also qualify the musk: 'dusty, humid' on one side, 'sweet amber ambrette fruity musk powdery' on the other. Powdery is the term The Good Scents Company gives outright and the dustiness the other source names twice. Dry_woody and amber_resinous are both listed directly, as 'dry-woody' and as 'ambery' and 'amber', and they are what separate this from the transparent musks. Earthy carries the 'unique earthy-ambery dimension', a phrase one source treats as the material's signature. Sweet_vanillic is the 'strong sweet' opening of the database descriptor. Fruity is a trace, listed once as 'ambrette fruity'. The word 'crystalline' in the descriptor list is not scored: it reads as the physical form of a white solid at least as easily as an odour claim.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~30h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Floral

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

What this is made of

tonalide

Names this molecule

CAS 21145-77-7

The note IS the molecule, CAS 21145-77-7, a polycyclic musk.

How the layers join

Origin

A synthetic. It is an acetyl hexamethyl tetralin, sold as Tonalide and as Fixolide, and it belongs to the same polycyclic musk family as Galaxolide. By the 1980s it was the second most used polycyclic musk after Galaxolide. Two published CAS numbers are attached to the same synonym set and neither source fetched reconciles them.

Usage in Perfumery

A base fixative used at scale. It gives a composition musky substantivity and a soft dusty weight without the transparency of the cleaner musks, and it turns up wherever a long, warm, powdery drydown is wanted.