Of the four big fragrance families (floral, fresh, woody, ambery), the ambery family is the one built on resins. It is warm, sweet, long-lasting and often heavy, and its history is the history of benzoin and labdanum finding their way into a bottle.
The name
For most of the twentieth century the family was called “oriental”, a marketing word evoking a vague Eastern luxury of spices, incense and silk. Perfumery bodies and retailers have moved away from the term as exoticizing and meaningless, and now say “amber” or “ambery”, which at least describes what the family actually is: perfumes with an amber base.
The structure
An ambery fragrance is defined by its base: the amber accord of labdanum, benzoin and vanilla, frequently deepened with styrax, tolu, opoponax, patchouli, sandalwood, tonka and musk. Over that base sits whatever the perfumer wants. Historically that was a citrus top (bergamot is classic) and a spicy or floral heart; today it can be anything from rose to oud to caramel. See How to build an amber accord.
Benzoin’s role in the base is to supply sweetness, powder and fixation and to blur the edges between labdanum’s animal warmth and vanilla’s creaminess. It is present in nearly every member of the family.
A short history
- Jicky (Guerlain, 1889) put vanillin, coumarin and civet in a base under lavender and citrus, and showed that a sweet, warm, resinous drydown could be modern.
- Emeraude (Coty, 1921) and Shalimar (Guerlain, 1925) set the template: bergamot over a heavy base of vanilla, benzoin, opoponax, tonka and incense. Shalimar is the family’s founding document.
- Tabu (Dana, 1932) and Youth Dew (Estée Lauder, 1953) made the spicy, dense amber a mass-market style.
- Opium (YSL, 1977) and Obsession (Calvin Klein, 1985) were the loud 1980s ambers: spice, resins, incense, at high concentration.
- Angel (Mugler, 1992) invented the gourmand: an amber base under candyfloss, chocolate and patchouli, which reorganized the family for the next thirty years.
- Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens, 1993) and the niche ambers that followed returned to the raw materials, making labdanum and benzoin the point rather than the background.
Sub-families
- Soft amber: powdery, with iris, heliotrope, vanilla and benzoin; gentle. Think of the classic feminine ambers.
- Spicy amber: cinnamon, clove, cardamom over the resins; the Opium lineage.
- Woody amber: sandalwood, cedar, patchouli, often with synthetic amber woods for dryness and projection; the dominant modern masculine style.
- Floral amber: rose, jasmine or tuberose over amber; opulent.
- Gourmand amber: vanilla, caramel, praline, chocolate over benzoin and labdanum; the family’s current centre of gravity.
- Incense amber: frankincense and myrrh over the resin base; the sacred-smoke style of many niche houses.
Recognizing it
Warmth, sweetness and length. An ambery fragrance is still there the next morning. Its drydown is resinous rather than clean, sweet rather than fresh, and close to the skin rather than airy (unless it is a modern woody amber pumped with synthetics). If you smell vanilla with a powdery, resinous shadow behind it, you are smelling benzoin doing its job. See Perfumes with benzoin.
Frequently asked questions
Why is 'oriental' being replaced by 'amber' or 'ambery'?
The industry has moved away from 'oriental' because it is an exoticizing term with no real geographic meaning. 'Ambery' describes the family by its core accord, the amber base of labdanum, benzoin and vanilla.
What are the sub-families of ambery fragrances?
Common divisions are soft amber (powdery, floral), spicy amber, woody amber, floral amber and, more recently, gourmand amber. Each shares the resinous base and differs in what sits on top.
What was the first oriental perfume?
Guerlain's Shalimar (1925) is usually named as the founding oriental, though Coty's Emeraude (1921) and Guerlain's own Jicky (1889) with its vanilla-civet base were forerunners.
Sources & further reading
- fragrance families
- amber
- oriental
- benzoin
