What Is Amber in Perfume? Not a Stone, Not a Tree, and Here Is What It Really Is

Amber is the most asked about word on the stall. People pick up a bottle, read amber on the label and ask if it is the orange stone with the insect in it. It is not. Nobody has worked out how to make a stone smell of anything. Amber in perfume is a recipe, and once you know what is in it you will start picking it out of half the perfumes you own.

What amber actually is

Perfumers use amber to mean a warm, sweet, slightly powdery, resinous base. It is built from a small handful of materials that get mixed in different amounts, and every house has its own version. The old name for the whole family was oriental. Most of the industry now says amber instead, and it is a better word for what you smell.

It gets confused with ambergris, the rare whale material, because the names sound alike. They smell nothing alike. Ambergris is salty and marine. Amber is warm and sweet.

What is in an amber base

Labdanum. The heart of it. Labdanum is a dark, sticky resin from the rockrose, a scrubby shrub that grows around the Mediterranean. Shepherds used to comb it off their goats' beards. It smells of warm leather, honey and something a bit like sun on dry skin. On my bench it is a thick brown paste that needs warming before it will pour.

Vanilla. Vanillin or a vanilla absolute for the sweetness. This is what turns labdanum from leathery into cosy.

A resin. Benzoin or a similar balsam for the powdery, soft finish. This is the part that makes amber feel like it wraps around you.

The modern amber materials. A group of lab-made molecules, ambroxan being the best known, that give the whole thing a warm glow and make it last. I have written about that one on its own.

Mix those four and you have the base of nearly every warm perfume made since 1925, when one French house put a smoky vanilla amber under bergamot and set the pattern everyone has followed since.

What does amber smell like?

Warm. That is always the first word. Then sweet, but a grown-up sweet, closer to honey and toffee than sugar. Then resinous, like the inside of a church or a wood fire that went out an hour ago. It sits close to the skin and it gets better as it warms up, which is why amber perfumes are winter and evening favourites everywhere from Sydney to Stockholm.

How I use it

Amber is where a Stuga perfume goes to get comfortable. On the sweet shelf it sits under fruit so the fruit does not vanish by lunch. On the wood shelf it softens the dry materials. On the dark shelf it stops oud and leather from being harsh. The amount changes with every blend but the job is the same: warmth, and a base that wears far longer than a raw plant oil could.

The Stuga amber perfumes

Amber No. 235 is amber with the lights on. Lychee and spun sugar on top, then a long amberwood base that is warm, glowing and sweet without being heavy. If you want to know what amber smells like, this is the bottle.

Oud No. 401 is amber in the dark. Golden amber under oudh wood and leather. Same warmth, more shadow, for evenings and cool weather.