Civet Absolute – INDIA

Adam Michael has this to say “This is Indian material (not African), collected from the secretions of the female and male civet cats. The material is a solid waxy mass, golden brown in colour which quickly becomes pourable with gentle warmth. The initial aroma is overbearing, raw, vile and slightly faecal. However, well diluted the aroma of civet absolute is entirely different, displaying musky, smoky and heightened sweet animalic notes of sublime tenacity that in trace amounts will add soft velvet, animalic and musk qualities to many perfume bouquets.

This material rarely appears for sale as a true natural, I think at the time of writing we are the only UK business offering this which is largely because most perfumers choose the synthetic substitutes, entirely animal friendly and more cost effective compared to the natural. Clearly selling civet is a serious grey area for us however we never actively looked for this material, instead a regular supplier had a few hundred grams left after completing a sale to a perfume house and asked if we would like to buy it. We went ahead with the purchase because we have been asked on numerous occasions by perfumers across the past two years for natural civet absolute and also because it provided us with a chance to better understand this incredibly scarce material.”