Vulcanolide

Note Profile

Molecule

About

A synthetic musk. Both sources that describe it agree on the same three words: musky, earthy, and either powdery or slightly amber. It is a musk with soil in it, not a laundry musk, and it is very strong. Firmenich's paper reports it as at least ten times stronger and more tenacious than the benchmark molecules of its own family.

Scent Profile

Clean_musk leads because both sources call the material a musk before they call it anything else, but the mapping is the weakest thing in this vector and the spread of 0.18 says so: the 32 facets have one musk slot and it is the transparent one, while these sources describe a musk with soil in it. Earthy is the qualifier both sources give independently, and CHIMIA names it in the definition itself - 'a polycyclic aromatic musk odorant with earthy and powdery facets'. Powdery comes from that same sentence. Amber_resinous is Bristol's 'slightly amber', hedged in the source and held down here to match the hedge. Under those sit dry_woody, which is the character of the weak (R,R) isomer rather than of the strong one, and small sweet_vanillic, animalic, floral and creamy_woody values that no source states. Those four are kept low with wide spreads rather than zeroed, because every published musk in this vocabulary carries them and zeroing would assert an absence nobody claimed.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~44h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Woody & Earthy

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

Origin

A polycyclic aromatic musk odorant, discovered and published by Firmenich. The University of Bristol dates the (S,S)-(-) form to 2002. The smell lives almost entirely in one stereoisomer. Bristol reports that (S,S)-(-)-vulcanolide has 'a powerful musky, earthy and slightly amber smell', while the (R,R)-(+) form has 'a very weak smell which is less earthy but slightly woody'. The Firmenich work reported by CHIMIA adds that a double bond at the ring junction is a structural requirement for the musk character.

Usage in Perfumery

A base musk and a fixative, used where a musk should read earthy and substantial rather than clean and transparent. The strength claim decides the dose: at least ten times that of the benchmark musks of the same family, so it goes in small. Attested on 4 Parfumo placements across 2 brands and on no Fragrantica note listing, which is the usage pattern of a captive that reaches finished perfumes through the house that made it. No supplier datasheet for it was found, so nothing here states a dose range.