Ambergris

Good pieces: marine, warm skin, damp tobacco, wood, faintly faecal. Aged tincture: mineral, round, diffusive, not sweet. Young black pieces smell harsher, more faecal and marine.

Ambergris is not named in the index of the IFRA Standards, 51st Amendment. In the United States ambergris appears in the GRAS list at 21 CFR 182.50.

The sperm whale is listed in CITES Appendix I. Trade in ambergris is banned or restricted in some countries and allowed in others when the material is beach-found. Each lot should be checked against the law of the country of collection and of destination.

Store tincture dark, sealed and cool.

Ambergris forms in the sperm whale intestine, thought to build up around indigestible squid beaks. It is expelled into the sea, drifts for years and strands on shores. During drifting, light, seawater and air oxidise it; colour moves from black through grey to white. White, light pieces are graded highest.

Ambrein, a triterpene alcohol, is nearly odourless. The odour comes from oxidative breakdown products, among them ambroxide and dihydroionones. Epicoprostanol, a gut-derived sterol, is a marker of genuine ambergris.

For perfumery the pieces are ground and macerated in ethanol, usually aged for months. The tincture serves as a fixative and softens a structure. Supply is unpredictable and priced piece by piece.

The industry replaced ambergris with ambroxide and related molecules. Ambroxide is usually made from sclareol, taken from clary sage. The amber family in modern perfumery is therefore tied more to a plant than to a whale.

Ambergris is graded by colour, lightness, hardness and the smell released by a hot needle. Touched with a hot needle, a genuine piece melts into an oil and releases its characteristic smell. Laboratory chromatography can confirm ambrein and epicoprostanol.