Atlas cedarwood

Of all the woods called cedar, only one is a true cedar, and it grows in the mountains of Morocco. The Atlas cedar is the tree of the great forests of the Middle Atlas, and its oil is warm, sweet and faintly animalic in a way that no juniper can imitate. It is the cedar of the old world.

What Atlas cedarwood is

Atlas cedarwood oil is steam distilled from the wood of Cedrus atlantica, a majestic conifer of the same genus as the cedars of Lebanon. The oil is rich in himachalenes and atlantones, molecules found in no other cedar, which give it a warm, sweet, slightly honeyed woodiness with a soft, almost animalic undertone. It is fuller and rounder than the American cedarwoods, and it sits beautifully beneath rose, oud and resins.

Where our Atlas cedarwood comes from

Ours comes from Morocco, where the Atlas cedar grows in ancient forests high in the Middle Atlas around Azrou and Ifrane, at altitudes where snow falls in winter and the summers are dry. The oil is distilled from wood recovered from forestry management and from the sawmills that work the timber. The slow growth of the tree at altitude gives a dense, resinous wood, and the oil distilled from it carries the warmth and depth of a tree that has stood for centuries in the cold.

How Atlas cedarwood smells

Sweet and woody, warm, faintly animalic. It opens with a soft, honeyed cedar, then reveals a deeper, slightly musky warmth and a dry, resinous finish that lasts on skin for many hours.

Atlas cedarwood in our chapters

• IIParadis de BleuThe Leaves · in the base

  In Paradis de Bleu it is the warmest of the three cedars, the true cedar that gives the green chapter its old world depth.

• VIImpériale OudThe First Root · in the base

  In Impériale Oud it sits beneath the rose and beside the oud, the warm wood that binds flower and root.

• VIIIRoyale OudThe Taproot · in the base

  In Royale Oud it is one of the great woods of the taproot, the true cedar among the resins.

A note from the atelier

Atlas cedar and rose have belonged together since the gardens of Persia, and in Impériale Oud I let them meet again, with oud beneath them both.

Questions about Atlas cedarwood