Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel

things, you need only a minute amount to perform miracles—a drop for one to two ounces of perfume. (For this reason, it is useful to make a tincture of civet so that you can precisely control the amount you add when you are creating a blend: add ten drops of civet to two ounces of alcohol and let it marry for a month.)
    Like the other animal essences, civet has tremendous fixation. In fact, long-ago perfumers “pre-fixed” their alcohol by adding civet or any of the other animal fixatives to their perfume alcohol and letting it rest for a month. The resulting alcohol bore no trace of civet in its fragrance, but the perfumes created with that alcohol were more tenacious.
    In Ethiopia, where civets are raised for their perfume ingredient, they are kept in terrible conditions, whereas in other parts of the world, such as Vietnam, they roam freely. They are not killed or injured in the extraction process, but they are placed in long cages in which they cannot turn around, and they are teased and irritated, as the secretion is much greater when the cat is angered. The civet is extracted from the pouch with a spatula. It is pale yellow and semiliquid, but it hardens and darkens upon exposure to air.
    With civet no longer in such demand, it should be possible to develop a more humane way of harvesting this peerless substance. The cat does produce it naturally, and even without provocation it produces an excess that it must wipe off on the bars of its cage or elsewhere to relieve itself when there is too much in the pouch.

    Certainly there is reason to treat the civet well. Once considered a pest in Indonesia’s coffee-growing regions because it ate the reddest, ripest coffee cherries, the civet was discovered (you don’t want to know how) to excrete the beans intact. Kopi Luwak, the world’s most expensive coffee, is now made from beans recovered from civet feces, and it is reputed to be extraordinary.
    Ambrette seed , from the hibiscus plant, is known as the vegetable equivalent of musk. The Latin name of the species, Hibiscus abelmoschus , derives from the Greek ibis , the storklike bird that is said to chew the plant, and the Arabic Kabbel-Misk , “grain or seed of musk.” The fruit of the plant is harvested when the plant is six months old. When the fruit dries, it bursts open and the large seeds are collected. The seeds are pressed to render the musky oil they contain.
    Hibiscus
    The resulting essence is a powerful and lasting oil that improves with age. Good ambrette seed has a body note that is smooth, rich, sweet, floral, and musky all at once, like brandy or overripe fruit. Its tenacity is incredible. A little goes a long way, and it must be smelled imaginatively and dosed carefully.
    Costus comes from the roots of the costus plant, Saucier lappa , which grows wild in the Himalayan highlands. According to Arctander, “It has a particular soft 63 but extremely tenacious odor, reminiscent of old precious wood, orris root … with a distinctly animal … undertone. The odor has been compared to that of human hair, fur coats, violets, and ‘wet dogs.’” It takes some openness to learn to like costus, but it is a terrific base that, used sparingly, imparts depth and fixation to a blend along with warm, woody notes, and can produce
diffusive power and intriguing top notes. Costus blends well with sandalwood, vetiver, patchouli, oakmoss, opoponax, and rose. It is considered an aphrodisiac.
    Tobacco used in perfume comes from various species of Nicotiana . Blond tobacco, the most available, has been disdained as a perfume ingredient because of its dark brown color, but that should not be an impediment to the natural perfumer, especially since the colorless version has an infinitely inferior aroma. (An essence is decolorized by treating it with an adsorbent such as activated charcoal, but the process tends to strip it of some of its desirable scent nuances along with the