An Inside Look at Some of the Best Perfume Ingredients

Do you know what’s in your favorite perfume?

Bottled fragrances are comprised of complementary scents. If a single-note affair is what you’re going for, you’d likely want to turn to essential oils.

What most people don’t know, however, is that there are some pretty funky ingredients that perfumers use to bring out the best in their complex and sophisticated products. Some traditional perfume components may be shocking to you, but they’ve actually been used in the industry for centuries.

Modern perfumes can include weird but ultimately mainstream elements such as food-inspired notes — like the hint of edamame in Alexander Wang’s B. Balenciaga or the faint caviar undertone in Thierry Mugler's Womanity — but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Below are three examples of animal-derived perfume ingredients that you probably don’t want to think about the next time you go shopping for the best perfume to become your new signature fragrance. To be fair, though, contemporary perfumeries tend to prefer using synthetic ingredients over the three substances we describe below.

Read on if you’re curious — but don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Ambergris from Sperm Whales

Ambergris is a wax-like lump that grows in sperm whale digestive tracts and is very rare. 99 percent of the species don’t even produce ambergris in the first place. It’s made of the stuff that whales can’t digest, like cuttlefish and squid bits, plus bodily secretions that keep the undigested elements from further irritating a whale’s insides.

Here’s where it gets gross: Sometimes, a whale will fall ill and die with the ambergris still in it. But usually, the mass is expelled along with fecal matter.

It’s important to note at this point that ambergris is typically found along coastlines or floating in the sea. When it washes up on shores, its condition depends on its age. Fresh ambergris is dark, dense, and soft. Old ambergris is light-colored, porous, and almost rock-like.

What’s the scent of ambergris? It’s said to impart a dry, musky and sweet odor, reminiscent of the sea. However, it’s mainly used in small quantities to enhance other fragrances. It not only works as a preservative but also helps a perfume’s scent last longer on your skin.

In the U.S. and Australia, it’s not legal to use ambergris in perfume formulations because sperm whales are endangered. Still, it’s not banned in British, French, or Swiss perfumeries.

Hyraceum from Rock Hyraxes

What is a rock hyrax? Imagine a cross between a giant guinea pig and a rabbit without a tail and you’ll get one of these furry mammals native to the Middle East and Africa. They live together in colonies of up to 80 individual hyraxes. Each colony has a designated place where they urinate and defecate.

Hyraceum is compacted and fossilized hyrax urine. Because of the way these animals live in the wild, hyraceum is harvested from deposits that are actually located near centuries-old hyrax colony locations. Hyraxes aren’t harmed by hyraceum gathering.

Hyraceum stones are brittle and brown. When they’re broken up, a dark oil is released. This substance has an intense and complex scent commonly described as earthy, fermented, leather-like, and even sensual. This ingredient is said to have a transformative effect on other scents included in a perfume. Sometimes, hyraceum is also added to balance out fragrances that smell too fresh or too sweet.

Aside from being an age-old component in South African perfumery, hyraceum is also present in the local folk medicine tradition.

Natural Musk from Musk Deer

Today, the musk deer is endangered, and natural musk trade is strictly controlled. Why? It has to do with the widespread popularity of musk as a perfume component in the past, and the fact that musk harvesting necessitates killing the animal.

Musk deer are small and shy. Only adult males produce natural musk, stored in a gland found in front of their penis. This gland is cut off, chopped in pieces and submerged in alcohol for months or years.

The result is a substance with a radiant and sweet aroma that adds body to any perfume formulation. Like ambergris, natural musk also helps a perfume’s scent to last longer on human skin. Because of its attractive fragrance, it’s used by itself, too.

Natural musk is so versatile and so expensive that the search for a comparable synthetic version began long before the animal was declared endangered in the 1970’s. To this day, man-made counterparts cannot 100 percent duplicate the complexity of the natural substance.

In 2011, a study claimed that sustainable musk deer farms could work with careful breeding and management; however, many perfumeries now simply don’t deal with natural musk anymore, or they turn to synthetic substitutes.

ResourcesDiscover Magazine, The Cut, Mental Floss, Refinery29

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