Ingredients · Amber & resins · dry-down
Opoponax oil
Say ituh-POP-uh-naks oil
Sweet, warm balsamic resin with honeyed, powdery and slightly animal tones.
- What it is
- Natural oil from distilled gum resin of sweet myrrh (Commiphora guidottii).
- Where it comes from
- Somalia, Ethiopia
- When you smell it
- Dry-down: hours later.
- What perfumers do with it
- Classic oriental ingredient; lends sweet resinous warmth and diffusion to ambers and powdery bases.
- Worth knowing
- The perfumery name was borrowed from Opopanax, an unrelated parsnip-family plant, a mix-up that has stuck for centuries.
- Rules
- Limited. IFRA caps opoponax at low levels in finished products.
- Also called
- Sweet myrrh oil; bisabol myrrh; Commiphora guidottii or erythraea
