Varnish Accord
Note Profile
About
A built accord for the smell of a freshly varnished surface. Shellac and turpentine over lacquered wood, resinous and warm with a sharp solvent edge on top.
Scent Profile
Amber-resinous leads and is the body of the accord. It is the balsamic weight of benzoin and labdanum, which the source names directly, and it reads as shellac rather than as incense. Dry woody sits under it as lacquered timber, smooth and closed rather than raw sawn wood. Aldehydic carries the solvent-sharp top, the turpentine lift that makes the accord smell wet and newly applied instead of set. Sweet vanillic is the vanilla the source reports inside the resin, and it rounds the solvent edge. Honeyed is the warm glow described under the shellac, golden and slightly sticky.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Prepared. Not a single material. The one source that describes it names three parts: resinous warmth from benzoin and labdanum, a solvent-like brightness from aldehydes and styrax, and a lacquered-wood smoothness. Composition varies by house, so what the term names is an effect rather than a fixed formula.
Usage in Perfumery
13 Fragrantica perfumes, absent from Parfumo. Used to place a fragrance in a workshop or an interior: furniture shops, old libraries, violin cases. It gives a woody-amber base a hard, polished, slightly chemical surface that plain amber or plain wood does not have.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Varnish Accord
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Varnish Accord appears prominently.
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