Styrax

Styrax is the resin that smells of leather. It is the balsam of the sweetgum tree, a dark, sticky exudate that hardens into something between amber and smoke, and it has been used in incense since antiquity. In my chapters it is the material that gives resins a hide.

What styrax is

Styrax is the balsam of trees of the genus Liquidambar, the sweetgums, obtained by wounding the bark and collecting the thick resin that flows from the wound. Our formula books use it both as the purified resin and as its essence, the volatile fraction drawn from the balsam. The material is rich in cinnamic acid and its esters, styrene and vanillin, which together give it a sweet, spicy, balsamic character with an unmistakable leathery, slightly smoky facet. It is the natural heart of many classic leather and amber accords.

Where styrax grows

Our formula books record the material and the tree but not a country, and so I print none. Liquidambar grows in two great regions, southwestern Anatolia in the case of Liquidambar orientalis and the American south and Central America in the case of Liquidambar styraciflua, and both give styrax of character. The house rule holds: where no origin is written down, none is claimed. What I can say is that the styrax I use is the true balsam of the sweetgum, with the leather and the sweetness that only that tree gives.

How styrax smells

Sweet, leathery, cinnamic and balsamic. It opens with a warm, spicy sweetness like cinnamon and honey, then turns darker and drier, into leather and a faint smoke, and lasts on skin for a full day.

Styrax in our chapters

• IIParadis de BleuThe Leaves · in the base

  In Paradis de Bleu it sits at the bottom of the green chapter beside birch tar and labdanum, the leather beneath the moss.

• VIImpériale OudThe First Root · in the base

  In Impériale Oud it joins labdanum beneath the oud, the sweet leather that echoes the leather of the wood.

• VIIIRoyale OudThe Taproot · in the base

  In Royale Oud it is one of the resins of the taproot, the leather among the balsams.

A note from the atelier

Oud is leathery by nature, and styrax is leather by nature. Set together they make the darkest part of a chapter feel like a single worn material rather than a list of notes.

Questions about styrax