Virginia cedarwood

Sharpen a pencil and you have smelled Virginia cedarwood. The heartwood of the eastern red cedar is what pencils have been made from for two centuries, and its oil carries exactly that scent: dry, clean, faintly sweet and unmistakably wooden. It is the most honest wood in my base notes.

What Virginia cedarwood is

Virginia cedarwood oil is steam distilled from the heartwood, sawdust and shavings of Juniperus virginiana, the eastern red cedar, which despite its name is a juniper rather than a true cedar. The oil is rich in cedrol and cedrene, which give its dry, woody, slightly balsamic character, and it is one of the most widely used natural woods in perfumery precisely because it smells so clearly of wood and nothing else. Much of the oil is distilled from the offcuts of the timber and pencil industries, which makes it one of the more sustainable materials in my palette.

Where our Virginia cedarwood comes from

Juniperus virginiana grows across the eastern half of the United States, from the Atlantic to the Great Plains, and the oil is distilled there, largely in the southern states where the tree is abundant. Our formula books record the species rather than a state, so the pin on our map marks the country of the tree. The dry, oily, pencil like character of the oil is the character of the tree itself: a hardy juniper of old fields and fence lines with a red, fragrant heart.

How Virginia cedarwood smells

Cedar, woody, oily and balsamic, with the clean scent of pencil shavings. It is drier and sharper than Atlas cedar, less smoky than Texas cedar, and it has a faint sweetness that becomes more apparent as it dries.

Virginia cedarwood in our chapters

• IIParadis de BleuThe Leaves · in the base

  In Paradis de Bleu it is one of three cedars in the base, the dry pencil wood among the greener notes.

• IIINéroli de NuitThe Blossom · in the base

  In Néroli de Nuit it is the dry wood beneath the blossoms, a clean line under the myrrh and benzoin.

• VIIIRoyale OudThe Taproot · in the base

  In Royale Oud it sits among the woods of the taproot, the driest of the cedars beneath the resins.

A note from the atelier

I use three cedars because no single cedar smells like the whole tree. Virginia gives the heartwood, Texas gives the smoke, Atlas gives the warmth, and in Paradis de Bleu all three stand together.

Questions about Virginia cedarwood