Green Oakmoss Absolute (IFRA 48)

Adam Michael has this to say “So across the past few months clients have been asking if we would carry IFRA compliant oakmoss. Due to the clients in question, I agreed and they made a group purchase. I looked at a handful of batches and there was one that impressed me. I’d go as far as saying it is exquisite. Talk about falling on your sword! This one is IFRA 48 and I have IFRA 51 paperwork. I will make this paperwork available (by logging into your account and going to the SDS section) to everyone that buys this by the end of January at the latest should you want it.

So I am releasing this on Christmas Night 2024 and aromatically, I repeat what anyone would say….this smells (diluted to 50% in alcohol) exactly like that of walking in the forest. This material is positively alive, inhaling this and it’s as though you are transported into a forest in the early morning, the whole sensation is eerie in its level of realism, the sounds of the birds chirping, squirrels foraging, wild boars hiding in the foliage, branches snapping. It’s easy to laugh but inhale this for yourself and as fast as you can click your fingers, bam you are in the forest. Now I have thought about this a lot, so much so that armed with this on my smell strip, I took myself to our woods, ever popular with Italian tourists and in part, running alongside the river-Arno, which wraps around our lands, a river that lots of you will know very well if you have visited Florence for example – stand on the Ponte Vecchio browsing the jewellery and the water running underneath you is indeed the river Arno as are the many bridges you cross when walking through Pisa.

Now I evaluated this in the woods at 50% dilution in alcohol and again this completely captures the real-time experience of walking through the woods, the way that air feeds your lungs, your brain, your soul, the smell of damp mosses, dry mosses, ferns, stinging nettles, the smell of muddy puddles, decaying leaves and branches, damp air, cellar air actually, the smells of tree trunks, damp stones, through to how your hands smell after crushing a medley of foliage as you walk and ponder.

And the smell of clothing too, after you have walked in the woods, the smells of your rucksack, the smells of all that vegetation and how it saturates your clothes, your skin, your essence. It’s truly beautiful. And weird too as I have never encountered what is claimed as IFRA compliant product that actually smells like this. When I inhale this aroma I do think of tree moss, cedar moss, fenchyl alcohol, damp woody almost swamp esq patchoulis, the variation in the woody profile here is full spectrum, and the green moss character is super abundant. Weirdly I’d add this even smells “green” it smells of “nature” of the unspoiled “outdoors”. I can’t place a season here though I walk in the woods a lot with my family – Sophia loves to put her hand on the trees now and say hello, super adorable and really calming too as we do the same, even hugging the trees. But my point being this forest feeling whilst always early morning for me due to the cooling effects going on here, could be Autumn, Winter, as easy as it could be Spring or Summer.

And touching on falling on my sword, I repeat I have never encountered anything compliant like this before – never. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Uses, rehash text from elsewhere on the site ….

As for uses, oakmoss blends and adds value to a wide spectrum of perfume compositions. The centre piece of course of a true chypre and fougere creation and a material used in some of the world’s most historically famous perfumes. Lends itself especially well within marine, moss, agrestic and forest floor creations. Properly dosed this oakmoss absolute adds wonder to herbaceous accords as it marries so well with aromatics such as lavender, thymes, clary sages and so on. General rule with oakmoss absolute is dose small as this material is not only a great fixative but one where its own presence grows within the composition.

Botanical Name: Evernia prunastri

Origin: The lichens which produce this absolute are found on oak trees, mostly around the Mediterranean. Produced in France.

Alcohol Soluble: Yes 

Oil Soluble: Yes

Wholesale weights (all prices excluding vat): 100G = 200 Euros.