Cumin

Cumin is the most intimate spice in perfumery. In large amounts it smells of a warm body after a long day; in a trace it smells of warm skin, and the difference between the two is the whole art. I use it in one chapter, in the smallest of amounts, and that chapter would not be the same without it.

What cumin is

Cumin oil is steam distilled from the dried seeds of Cuminum cyminum, a small annual of the parsley family that has been cultivated since ancient Egypt. The oil is dominated by cuminaldehyde, a molecule with a warm, dry, sweaty, faintly green character that is instantly recognisable and instantly human. Perfumers have used it for a century to give compositions a living warmth, the sense that the fragrance is on a body rather than on paper.

Where our cumin comes from

Ours comes from India, the largest producer of cumin in the world, where the seed is grown across the dry plains of the northwest and harvested in the spring. Cumin needs a long, hot, dry season to develop its full aroma, and the Indian growing regions provide exactly that. The Indian seed gives an oil that is rich in cuminaldehyde with a rounded, slightly sweet warmth rather than a harsh edge. It is recorded in our formula books as Indian, and that is what I print.

How cumin smells

Warm, dry, sweaty spice with a little green. At full strength it is powerful and animalic. In the traces I use it becomes something else entirely: the warmth of skin, a soft human glow beneath the woods.

Cumin in our chapter

• VIISultanat OudThe Deep Roots · in the heart

  In Sultanat Oud it sits deep in the heart beside wormwood and clary sage, the trace of warm skin that makes the oud and sandalwood feel worn rather than displayed.

A note from the atelier

Cumin is the reason Sultanat Oud smells like a person rather than a room. It is there in the smallest possible amount, and you will never name it, but you will feel that the fragrance is alive.

Questions about cumin