Ingredients · Leather & smoke · dry-down
Birch tar oil (rectified)
Smoky, tarry and phenolic, turning to sweet, oily Russian leather.
- What it is
- Natural oil from dry-distilled birch bark and wood (Betula pendula), redistilled.
- Where it comes from
- Russia, Eastern Europe
- When you smell it
- Dry-down: hours later.
- What perfumers do with it
- The historic Russian-leather note; smoky tar for leather, tobacco and campfire accords.
- Worth knowing
- Russia leather got its famous smell from birch-tar oil used to waterproof and finish the hides.
- Rules
- Limited. Only PAH-cleaned rectified grades allowed; crude tar carries carcinogens.
- Also called
- Birch wood pyrolysate; oleum rusci
