Tobacco absolute

Dry tobacco leaf, honey, dried fruit, hay, warm wood. Leather and black tea facets. Dense, sweet, faintly smoky, long-lasting.

Tobacco absolute has no dedicated standard in the IFRA 51 index.

Nicotine and its salts are listed in Annex II of the EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009, meaning they are prohibited in cosmetics. Suppliers sell denicotinised or nicotine-controlled absolutes; certificates should be checked before cosmetic use.

Store dark, sealed and cool.

Tobacco leaves are air-, fire- or flue-cured, then aged to ferment. The process breaks down leaf carotenoids into odorous norisoprenoids such as megastigmatrienones and damascenone. These are the main source of the honey and dried-fruit notes.

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.

Oriental tobaccos from Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece have small aromatic leaves; fire-cured Virginia tobaccos give sweet, smoky notes. Absolutes from each leaf type differ.

In perfumery tobacco absolute underpins leather, amber and woody accords. It pairs with tonka, vanilla, labdanum and hay. Dosage is low because of its strength and dark colour.

The main regulatory issue is nicotine. Since nicotine is prohibited in EU cosmetics, producers developed processes to remove it from the absolute. Each lot's safety file should state nicotine content.

Tobacco is native to the Americas and reached Europe in the 16th century. The genus Nicotiana is named after Jean Nicot, the French diplomat who sent the plant to the French court.