Amber

Amber in perfume is an accord, not a single ingredient: a warm, resinous blend that the perfumer assembles, most often from labdanum, benzoin and vanilla or its synthetic counterpart, vanillin. It has nothing to do with the golden fossil resin set in a brooch, which smells of very little unless it is burned. Nor is it ambergris, the whale material, which smells marine and mineral rather than sweet.

Where it comes from

Labdanum is the sticky gum of the rockroses, Cistus ladanifer in the western Mediterranean and Cistus creticus in the east. In ancient times it was gathered by combing the beards and thighs of goats that had browsed among the shrubs; in Crete the tool was a rake strung with leather thongs instead of teeth. Today the gum is extracted from the plants themselves, in places such as Andalusia in southern Spain, by boiling the leaves and twigs and then treating the resin with solvents or steam. It is the main material perfumers reach for when they build an amber.

Benzoin is a resin tapped from Styrax trees. Siam benzoin comes from Styrax tonkinensis, found in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam; Sumatra benzoin comes from Styrax benzoin and its relatives on the island of Sumatra. Perfumers value it as a fixative, slowing the escape of lighter materials into the air.

How it smells

Labdanum is balsamic, caramelised and slightly burnt, with something of leather and dried fruit about it. Siam benzoin is sweet, powdery and close to vanilla; Sumatra benzoin is spicier, with a hint of cinnamon. Together, and softened by vanilla, they give the amber effect: warm, resinous and enveloping, like dried fruit on a hot stone or a room that has kept the day’s heat into the evening.

Woody amber

For years the warm, resinous family was called “oriental”. In 2021 Michael Edwards’s fragrance wheel, Fragrances of the World, replaced that word with amber, so Woody Oriental became Woody Amber: the place where woods and resins meet. Modern perfumery has added a further layer, a group of synthetic molecules known as ambery woods, Iso E Super and Ambroxan among them, which give a dry, radiant woodiness rather than the syrupy warmth of the resins.

In our fragrances

The Library is a Woody Amber, the library after dinner. Pink pepper and cardamom open it; tobacco leaf, papyrus and orris form the heart; then Virginia cedar, labdanum and benzoin make a base that is warm without ever becoming sweet, the dry wood keeping the resins honest. In Highland, labdanum works higher up, in the heart, deepening wild heather and smoky lapsang tea before the peat smoke arrives. The Discovery Set lets you try both side by side with the other four.

All the notes