Clary sage absolute / concrete

Warm herb, dry tea, tobacco, amber, a hint of leather. Little of the oil's fresh green top; a balsamic, near-amber drydown.

Sclareol, the main constituent of the concrete and absolute, is under an IFRA specification standard (2005). Clary sage absolute has no other dedicated standard in the IFRA 51 index.

Linalool and linalyl acetate are present; linalool is an EU-labelled allergen above threshold. The library's clary sage oil page records a higher sensitisation profile for the absolute than for the oil. Store dark, sealed and cool.

Salvia sclarea is a Mediterranean biennial grown on a large scale in France, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine and China. It flowers in its second summer; flowering tops are cut at full bloom.

Sclareol is a diterpene diol concentrated in the calyces. Being practically non-volatile, it is scarce in the distilled oil. The distillation residue or dried tops are solvent-extracted to obtain a sclareol-rich concrete.

An absolute is made in two steps. The raw material is extracted with a non-polar solvent such as hexane to give a waxy concrete. The concrete is then washed with ethanol, chilled to precipitate waxes, filtered and freed of alcohol. What remains is the absolute.

Sclareol is the main feedstock for synthesising ambroxide, the replacement for ambergris. Much of the world's clary sage is grown for this purpose rather than for oil. Purified sclareol is also sold as a material in its own right.

In perfumery clary sage absolute gives an amber, tobacco and warm-herb base. It links lavender, labdanum, woods and leather. It is clearly different from the oil, which is fresh, green and rich in linalyl acetate.

The IFRA standard for sclareol is a specification standard: it sets quality requirements on the material rather than a concentration limit per product category.