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The Origin of Ambergris (2012)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- amarcheschi 2y agoUp until not too much ago we also extracted musk essence from the anal glands of white belly musk deer. Another interesting thing is oud. It's a resin produced in aquilaria trees when infected with a specific fungus, and it can cost tens of thousands of dollars per kg. I think one of the first famous commercial Perfumes to use it was m7 by ysl, you can read an article on it on fragrantica: https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Yves-Saint-Laurent-M7-Revisiting-the-Modern-Classic-18098.html https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Yves-Saint-Laurent-M7-Revis...
- dekhn 2y agoDon't forget castoreum, from sacs near the anus of beaver.
- amarcheschi 2y agoYep. Funny enough, in Italian beaver is just castoro
- Loughla 2y agoI recently did a trapping class with my youngest so he could get his license to trap nuisance animals. I was surprised by how pleasant beaver smells. And how DELICIOUS they are. How are they not extinct?
- bartread 2y agoIn some parts of the world they have been extinct. They'd been extinct in the UK for a very long time until recently re-introduced.
- dekhn 2y agoThat's a great question, I really have no idea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_hat). I'm generally not opposed to hunting, and totally get that beavers are a nuisance to many people, but IMHO they're probably a load-bearing element of many ecologies. I was just looking at 150 acres of swamp supporting a diverse ecosystem today created by a family of beavers
- eru 2y agoCows are very delicious to humans and make good leather, but that has been very good for there survival: we breed lots and lots of them. If beavers became more popular as food (and for their fur, again), we would probably make sure we had plenty of them around.
- bawolff 2y ago> How are they not extinct? Hats went out of fashion.
- cogman10 2y ago> How are they not extinct? One species of beaver, the European beaver, almost did go extinct. The American beaver was simply lucky to live in a vast unpopulated land where it wasn't a highly desired hunting target.
- givemeethekeys 2y agoI'll stick to normal exotics like Axe Body Spray.
- dekhn 2y agoAxe Body spray: Alcohol Denat, Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Perfume, Ethylhexylglycerin, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Citral, Citronellol, Coumarin, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Limonene, Linalool. The perfume likely contains exotics, but the rest of the ingredients are mainly sourced from fermentation products, hydrocarbons (petroleum), or synthetic versions of plant oils/terpenes. Coumarin came up on Hacker News recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40758767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40758767 The entire history of perfumes is fascinating, and like pigments/dyes, was completely transformed by modern organic synthesis, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume#History and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume#Synthetic_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume#Synthetic_sources
- toast0 2y agoConsider branching out to Bod.
- jarsbe 2y agoOud is exceptional. I highly recommend anyone wanting to explore beyond western perfumes to check out www.ensaroud.com - there's some really fantastic descriptions of olfactory notes too.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- epapsiou 2y agoFirst one to use oud was Balenciaga PH. M7, AFAIK, used the synthetic oud captive. Not the real deal. Definitely the reissue (square bottle) did.
- Clamchop 2y agoFortunately for perfumery, ambergris' distinctive odor is principally owed to just two chemicals, ambroxan and ambrinol, both of which are now synthesized.
- narag 2y agoAmbrinol is really disgusting (source: I have a small sample) and only makes sense mixed with the very nice ambroxide (IIRC, ambroxan is a commercial moniker for it). There's a curious evolution about abroxan's rep. If I'm not mistaken it was Dior that first used the name instead of ambergris in the publicity materials. I guess they were trying to avoid the "they kill the poor whales to make fucking perfumes". But they ended with the "I can't stand that synthetic ambroxan crap, I must be allergic and everybody's wearing Sauvage now". New perfumes use some other bullshit names like "driftwood", "marine notes" or just "amber" (a very different stuff).
- jlnthws 2y ago"Ambergris has been synthesized, but its synthetic versions are not convincing. They lack an indefinable something that is gained only after years spent at sea." Probably a bit like synthesized truffle oil, good enough for most people but lacking richness for a trained delicate palate.
- Nursie 2y agoThe scandal with truffle oil is how difficult it is to find anything remotely real even if you want to, because of the duplicitous wording on packaging and marketing copy.
- wakaru44 2y agoI think the scandal with truffle is that even refined palates can't find it. Even the most refined restaurants that use actual truffle, are forced to add the fake thing, or most customers won't be satisfied with the dish.
- jarsbe 2y agoThe bloom and trail effect given by ambergris is replaced with ambroxan, however combining ambroxan and ambrinol does little to recreate a "real" ambergris odour. Those may thousands of other molecules, while perhaps only <5%, give a very distinctive and unique odour. It's like a rich leather bag that's been floating in the ocean for +30y - salty, marine, animalistic, musky and leathery all in one.
- dekhn 2y agoSee also: https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/773/chapter-92-ambergris/ https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/773/chapter-92-amber...
- an_aparallel 2y agoone of my favourite frags 'Kouros' by YSL uses ambergris (or synthesised) shame that over time the formula has changed so much. as per descriptions..it really used to smell like "sweat"/"heavy"...and has changed to much fresher and cleaner.
- armitron 2y agoIt's not ambergris that gives Kouros its characteristic pissy notes, but civet (also real oakmoss and strong aldehydes) ingredients all of which they toned down in the early 2000s and then completely removed in 2008 (Loreal era). The Kouros you can buy these days (white instead of metallic shoulders), is heavy on coriander with barely any "musk" and bears little resemblance to the "scent of the gods" of the 80s and 90s. I still have multiple bottles from the 90s which are as good as ever, together with Kouros Fraicheur from the same era which is another Pierre Bourdon masterpiece. YSL perfumes from the 80s and 90s were legendary.
- an_aparallel 2y agothanks for the correction :) I would kill for a bottle of Fraische...is that similar/same to Kouros Sport?
- armitron 2y agoIt's Kouros with no aldehydes, less sage, no coriander/cinammon/leather, retaining the civet but a bit different: the pissy notes are now even sharper but the "fecal" notes are gone, more citrus/fruit (some say pineapple but I can't pick that up) and a similar legendary warm/soapy/amber drydown, what you'd expect an ancient Greek temple full of burning incense to smell like. It's definitely in the same league as Kouros, and much more wearable in the summer. Kouros Sport (which I also have) is not as good, as it doesn't project as much and all the notes are greatly diminished as if they've been diluted.
- epapsiou 2y agoNot just Civet, the original had Costus Root too.
- nitin-pai 2y agoFor a moment I thought this was about Manzikert, Tonsure, Shriek and Finch...of Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris trilogy.
- perdomon 2y agothis was very well written. Does anyone known why the adjacent letters "fi" appear as a question mark in my browser throughout the article?
- because_789 2y agoReally interesting to read. So IIUC ambergris is _sometimes_ formed in the 4th (last) sperm whale stomach, is basically a constipatory plug of indigestible squid parts (beaks, quills, and eye lenses) which either eventually passes thru the whale’s anus, ruptures the intestine and kills the whale, or is (was?) harvested on rare occasion by whalers. And if you’re lucky you can find it washed up on beaches.
- wsc981 2y agoIt can be worth a very nice amount of money. Life changing perhaps, depending on where you live. https://thethaiger.com/thai-life/lucky-fisherman-finds-whale-puke-worth-3-million-baht-on-thailand-beach https://thethaiger.com/thai-life/lucky-fisherman-finds-whale... 3 million Baht buys a quite nice house or condo in Thailand.