Ambrette seed absolute

Soft vegetal musk with a pear brandy nuance and dry wood. Powdery, warm skin and light hay facets. Very tenacious.

Ambrette seed absolute has no dedicated standard in the 51st Amendment of the IFRA Standards. Farnesol, a seed constituent, is subject to an IFRA restriction and specification (2020). Musk ambrette, a synthetic nitro musk prohibited by IFRA since 2006, is an entirely different substance and does not occur in the seed.

Farnesol is on the EU fragrance allergen list and must be labelled above 0.001 percent in leave-on or 0.01 percent in rinse-off products.

Store dark, sealed and cool.

Abelmoschus moschatus is a shrub of the mallow family, close to okra. In Vietnam it is called vông vang. The seeds are small, kidney-shaped and grey-brown, and smell musky when crushed.

The musky note comes from ambrettolide, a 17-membered macrocyclic lactone. It is one of the few macrocyclic musks found in plants. The seed also contains farnesyl acetate, farnesol and straight-chain esters such as decyl acetate and dodecyl acetate, which add fruity and brandy-like facets.

Steam distillation gives an oil rich in fatty acids, often solid and called ambrette butter. Solvent extraction gives a concrete, which is washed with ethanol, chilled and filtered to remove fats, then freed of alcohol as an absolute. The absolute carries fewer fatty acids and smells clearer.

In perfumery, ambrette was a vegetal musk long before synthetic musks existed. It brings warmth and a skin-like quality to florals such as iris, rose and jasmine, and to leather accords. High price and small supply keep it at low doses.

The names are easily confused. Musk ambrette is a synthetic nitro musk of the late 19th century, named for its resemblance to ambrette seed, and is prohibited by IFRA. The seed absolute is chemically unrelated.

The library already has a page for ambrette seed oil. This page records the absolute.