Galbanum

Galbanum is a gum resin that seeps from the stems of Ferula gummosa, a tall perennial of the carrot family that grows wild on the mountain slopes of Iran. In perfume it is green at its most uncompromising: bitter, sappy and faintly metallic, the smell of a thick stem snapped in two.

Where it comes from

Ferula gummosa, sometimes listed as Ferula galbaniflua, is native to Iran and its neighbours to the north and east, and Iran remains the main source of the resin. Collectors cut into the plant near the base of the stem, and a pale, creamy sap wells out and hardens in the air. What they gather are irregular lumps and tears, more or less translucent, in shades of light brown, yellow and greenish yellow.

The resin reaches the perfumer in several forms. Steam distillation gives an essential oil, the freshest and most piney of them. Extraction with a solvent gives a resinoid, which keeps more of the heavier, balsamic material, and a further purification step turns that into an absolute.

What galbanum smells like

Intensely green, and bitter before it is anything else. There is torn leaf and raw sap in it, an edge that borders on metallic and a vegetable sharpness close to green pepper; diluted, people have found in it pine, parsley and green apple. Beneath the attack it softens into something resinous and balsamic, with a faint earthiness.

The chemistry is a little surprising. Most of the oil is ordinary monoterpenes, the same family as the pinene in pine needles, but these contribute little to the smell that makes galbanum recognisable. That comes from trace constituents, among them pyrazines, the same class of molecule that gives raw green pepper its smell, and two compounds that chemists first described in galbanum as recently as 2009.

Is galbanum a top note?

Often, yes. Its sharp green arrives early and sets the tone, which is why it tends to be listed among the top notes, as it is in Racing Green. But it is a resin, not a citrus peel, and the heavier extracts carry on into the heart and help hold a composition together. So galbanum opens a scent and then lingers in it longer than its first impression suggests.

How perfumers use it

Sparingly. A small amount changes the whole character of a fragrance, and too much flattens everything around it. Galbanum is closely tied to the green chypre, where its bitterness is set against citrus above and moss below. It is also costly, and fragrance houses have long looked for molecules that echo its green.

In our fragrances

Racing Green opens with galbanum and freshly mown grass, brightened by Calabrian bergamot. It is the paddock at first light. Violet leaf and Haitian vetiver follow at the heart, and the base settles into saddle leather, oakmoss and dry cedar, so that the bitter green at the start has something old and mossy to come home to. You can try it beside the other five in the Discovery Set.

All the notes