Woody & Earthy

Mossy

Oakmoss, damp forest floor, the chypre backbone

mossy_chypre 17 notes 27 materials 3 anchors

What it smells like

Bitter, grey-green, inky and faintly leathery. Oakmoss is the structural note of the chypre family. Its restriction under fragrance allergen rules is the single biggest reason a number of classic perfumes no longer smell as they once did.

Where it stops

Mossy is bitter where Earthy is sweet. It carries a dryness that pushes it toward Leather rather than toward soil.

Smells most like

oakmoss - and in the same register, moss, lichen.

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
3-methoxy-5-methylphenol CAS 3209-13-0 mossy, oakmoss
methyl 2,4-dihydroxy-3-methylbenzoate CAS 33662-58-7 mossy, oakmoss
methyl 2,4-dihydroxy-3,6-dimethylbenzoate CAS 4707-47-5 mossy, oakmoss
juniperol CAS 465-24-7 mossy
scentenal CAS 86803-90-9 mossy IFRA
hinokitiol CAS 499-44-5 mossy
sclareolide CAS 564-20-5 mossy
methyl-delta-ionone CAS 7784-98-7 oakmoss
trans-carvyl propionate CAS 74431-24-6 mossy
beta-caryophyllene alcohol CAS 472-97-9 mossy
3-ethylpyridine CAS 536-78-7 oakmoss
2-methylundecanal CAS 110-41-8 mossy
1,1-diethoxydecane CAS 34764-02-8 mossy
4-tert-butylphenol CAS 98-54-4 oakmoss IFRA
2-isobutylquinoline CAS 93-19-6 oakmoss
6-isobutylquinoline CAS 68198-80-1 oakmoss
6-sec-butylquinoline CAS 65442-31-1 oakmoss
5-tert-butylquinoline CAS 61702-91-8 oakmoss
2,5-dimethyl-4-cyanoresorcinol oakmoss
2-hexyl-1,3-dioxolane-4-methanol CAS 1708-35-6 mossy
[(E)-hex-2-enyl] 2-phenylacetate CAS 68133-78-8 mossy
2-octanol, 2,6-dimethyl-, 2-acetate CAS 68480-08-0 mossy
1,4,4-trimethyltricyclo[5.3.1.02,6]undecan-11-ol CAS 56747-96-7 mossy
3,6-dimethyl-2,4-dioxocyclohexane-1-carbonitrile oakmoss
4-butyl-4-hydroxy-3,5,5-trimethylcyclohex-2-en-1-one moss
(1R,2R,4R)-1,2,3,3-tetramethylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-ol CAS 28462-85-3 mossy
2,2,8,8-tetramethyl-octahydro-1H-2,4a-methanonapthalen-9-ol CAS 88644-30-8 mossy
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
  • moss
  • mossy
  • oakmoss
Partial Terms that lean this way but also load elsewhere
  • musty
  • musty, earthy, moldy

The rest of Woody & Earthy

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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