Amber · Musk · Leather

Amber

Labdanum, benzoin, myrrh, warm resin

amber_resinous 144 notes 342 materials 8 anchors

What it smells like

Amber is not a material. It is an accord, traditionally labdanum with vanilla and benzoin. It smells warm, sweet, dry and balsamic, like resin softened by sun.

Where it stops

This facet carries the most confused name in perfumery. Fossil amber has no smell. Ambergris is a marine animal product. The word on a bottle usually means neither.

Smells most like

amber - and in the same register, resins, spruce resin.

Notes that load on it

Notes from our catalogue whose position on this facet is 0.40 or higher, strongest first. A note is not filed under one facet: it carries a value on all 34 at once, and these are the ones where this axis is doing real work.

Materials that carry it

Real substances, each keyed by its CAS registry number, that an external perfumery vocabulary publishes with a term meaning this facet outright. This is the layer that makes a facet checkable against something outside our own database.

Materials carrying this facet, with registry number, source terms and regulatory status
Material CAS Terms Status
linalyl cinnamate CAS 78-37-5 amber, balsamic, labdanum
cis-amyl cinnamate CAS 3487-99-8 amber, balsamic, labdanum
1-phenylpent-4-en-1-one CAS 3240-29-7 balsamic, labdanum, myrrh
sclareol CAS 515-03-7 amber, balsamic Declarable IFRA
butyl benzoate CAS 136-60-7 amber, balsamic
nonyl benzoate CAS 5451-95-6 balsamic, myrrh
geranylcinnamat CAS 71605-84-0 amber, balsamic
pentyl benzoate CAS 2049-96-9 amber, balsamic
geranyl benzoate CAS 94-48-4 amber, balsamic
propyl cinnamate CAS 74513-58-9 amber, balsamic
isobutyl cinnamate CAS 122-67-8 balsam, labdanum IFRA
(z)-abienol CAS 17990-16-8 amber, balsamic
(-)-ambroxide CAS 6790-58-5 amber, labdanum
16-hexadecanolide CAS 109-29-5 amber, balsamic Declarable
3-phenylprop-2-enal CAS 104-55-2 balsamic, resinous Declarable IFRA
(z)-gamma-bisabolene CAS 495-62-5 balsamic, myrrh
3-methylbutyl cinnamate CAS 7779-65-9 amber, balsamic
2-phenoxyethyl propionate CAS 23495-12-7 myrrh, resinous
8-tricyclo[5.2.1.02,6]dec-4-enyl 2-methylpropanoate CAS 67634-20-2 amber, balsamic
2-(3,3-dimethyl-2-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptanyl)pent-4-en-2-ol balsamic, resinous
5-butan-2-yl-2-(2,4-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3-dioxane CAS 117933-89-8 amber, resinous
(2R,8aS)-1-[(E)-6-[(1S)-2,2-dimethyl-6-methylidenecyclohexyl]-4-methylhex-3-enyl]-2,5,5,8a-tetramethyl-3,4,4a,6,7,8-hexahydro-1H-naphthalen-2-ol CAS 473-03-0 amber, labdanum
nopol CAS 128-50-7 balsamic
phytol CAS 7541-49-3 balsamic
phytol CAS 150-86-7 balsamic
pinane CAS 6876-13-7 balsamic
benzoin CAS 119-53-9 balsamic
borneol CAS 464-43-7 balsamic
borneol CAS 464-45-9 balsamic
guaiene CAS 88-84-6 balsamic

Showing 30 of 342. The full set ships with the published standard rather than being paginated here.

Reading the two flags

Declarable means the substance appears in Annex III of the EU Cosmetics Regulation, so it has to be named on the ingredient list once it passes a concentration threshold. IFRA means an IFRA Standard restricts or prohibits its use. Both are facts about the substance, not about any fragrance: a perfume can contain a declarable material below the threshold and never print it, and a restricted material used within its limit is used correctly.

The source also supplies no common name for a large share of materials, so those display as a bare registry number and are ranked last. They are kept because they are real evidence: dropping them would make the vocabulary look better described than it is.

Anchor terms

A facet on its own is just a word we chose. An anchor is what makes it checkable: a term in an external, independently maintained vocabulary of odour descriptions, built for perfumery materials rather than for us. The material list above is drawn from the direct terms only, because a partial term corroborates too weakly to stand as evidence on its own.

Direct Terms that mean this facet outright
  • amber
  • balsam
  • balsamic
  • benzoin
  • labdanum
  • myrrh
  • resinous
  • woody, resinous
Partial Terms that lean this way but also load elsewhere
  • incense

The rest of Amber · Musk · Leather

The other facets in this family. A note can load on any of them at the same time as this one, so they are neighbours rather than alternatives.

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