Ingredients · Amber & resins · dry-down

Ambergris tincture

Say itAM-bur-gris TINGK-chur

Soft, salty-sweet, earthy and tobacco-like, with a skin-warm animal glow.

What it is

Natural tincture from aged sperm-whale intestinal mass, found floating or beached on coasts worldwide.

When you smell it

Dry-down: hours later.

What perfumers do with it

Luxurious fixative that rounds, diffuses and humanises a formula, adding radiant skin-like warmth.

Worth knowing

Fresh ambergris smells fecal; years of sun and seawater oxidize its odorless ambrein into the prized scent.

Rules

Limited. Trade illegal in the US and Australia; legal in EU/UK.

Also called

Grey amber; ambre gris infusion