Ambergris & Making Perfume

The making of perfume is a little bit like making sausage--you don't really want to know what goes into it.
Traditionall, some pretty ripe stuff was used: Anal glands of Mongolian cats, the naughty bits of captured male creatures, etc. I'd just as soon not know about either.

But this stuff, Ambergris, is just too exotic to go unnoticed. Good thing the ingredients of most top perfume are kept secret. If you knew, would you apply this stuff to your pulse points???

Ambergris is the Sperm Whale equivalent of a fur ball, all the undigested crap they have in their stomachs. The whale eats indigestible stuff, and every once in a while it belches a pack of it back up. It's mostly oily stuff, so it floats, and ambergris isn't considered any good unless it's floated around the Indian ocean for ten years or so.

It starts out white and the sun creates the odorant properties by photochemistry, which means that it's become rancid, the molecules are breaking up, and you get an incredibly complex olfactory result.

It looks like black butter. This chunk about two feet square, thirty kilos. Huge. A brick like that can power Chanel's ambergris needs for twenty years. This chunk is worth a million dollars

"The way you test ambergris is to rub it with both hands and then rub your hands together and smell them. It's a very peculiar smell, marine, sealike, slightly sweet, and ultrasmooth…he rubs his hands in this black oily mess and smells them, and it's terrific ambergris. "Great," he says. "Sold."

Dioressence was created from a cheap Dior soap base, chypric, fruity aldehydic, plus a giant cube of rancid whale vomit. And it is one of the greatest perfumes ever made.

From The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr

Comments

[wendy]

I had heard the term 'ambergris' before ... I think I even associated it with whales in some capacity ... but had no idea what exactly it is - how interesting.

[Marie]

I did not know this--thanks for making scents!

[Geoff]

It is fortunate the whale is not harmed by the exploitation. Fascinating!

[byron]

Wow I'll have to pass this along to my colleagues swimming in perfume & cologne, around my desk

Thanks for the lifejacket, but I’m still about to puke over this rancid odor

[Mike]

Is this Ambergris stuff the same ingredients thats in Amber perfume? Just curious..

[petros]

Hello,

I believe I have some ambergris. Anyone know what the prices are and who might be interested?

[meshonni]

Thank you in my class in college no one believed that this stuff was made of whale vomit so thanks for posting this info so easy for me to find

[joyce Miller]

I recently met a woman from Saudi Arabia, she told me of this whale perfume.She was wearing it and it has a wonderful smell.