I created Ámbar del Sur gathering some of the most precious ingredients in my library.
Yes, currently amber is a trendy aromatic profile. But amber as an accord, has been around for a few centuries.
Amber bases have existed for a long time. They just were not known by that name. Admixing different resins collected from tree barks with dried herbs, honey and oils would have been a version of an “amber base” used in Egypt or Greece for varied purposes like washing a body before mummification, or offerings to deities during ceremonies. The amber used was of natural origin, fossilized tree resin, and its smell was not sweet by itself, but it was the combination rather, with other ingredients that modified it to become pleasant to humans.
But Amber as an accord, also represents or is a version of the more elusive ambergris. A wonderful material of natural origin that has been used in perfumery and in food for a few thousand years.
Ambergris is a substance regurgitated by sperm whales that solidifies while it's floating in the ocean. It has the consistency of pumice stone, and the smell of the ocean. More than 400 different molecules can be found in its makeup.
For centuries found in the shores of Northern Europe, Africa and India, Ambergris was also occasionally traded in the XVIII and XIX Centuries along points of the Patagonian shores, when passengers of transoceanic trade and exploration vessels would stop to replenish supplies, on their voyage around Cape Horn, all of this, before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Passengers would comingle with indigenous and natives, trading utensils brought from Europe, and ambergris stones collected by the natives made their way to the pages of history.
Ámbar del Sur revives these stories, infused with precious essential oils, resins, ambergris and castoreum reconstitutions, and some rare distills hauling from India.
As far as ambergris itself, well...that's a subject for another blog post, and then some.
When I burn it at home, it diffuses through the entire house and it lingers for hours. It is a fav of some friends during the holidays, and now I am making it available to everyone who wants to smell what ambergris smells like.
RHR