Fragrance notes: castoreum
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In our guide to fragrance notes, we've come to Castoreum, also known as beaver gall - an animal ingredient that, with its intense aromatic character, is mainly used to evoke certain leather accords and is now mainly produced synthetically for ethical reasons.
Anal secretions from the beaver - from natural medicine to aromatic delicacy
Castoreum in its true form is a yellowish liquid secreted from sac-like pouches near the anal opening that beavers use to mark their territory. Originally, beavers were trapped to access the medicinal properties of beaver gall. Among other things, it was thought to be effective against sensory disorders, inflammations (it actually contains natural salicylic acid and used to be sold in pharmacies), fever and potency problems.
In the food industry it has (allegedly) also been used as a sweetener in vanilla, although today it is unlikely that you would ingest it with your dessert or coffee cake - beaver gel is not dangerous or unhealthy to consume, but as the ingredient is extremely expensive today, you as a consumer would probably not be prepared to pay for it.
In the perfume industry, castoreum has been a much sought-after product, as it evokes an intense aroma of leather and beaver oil, and is used to create an impression of sweetish, sometimes smoky leather - not infrequently in chypre perfumes and fragrances of an animalic nature. In other words, castoreum is one of four animal notes from the animal kingdom, the others being musk, ambergris (ambergris) and civet oil (from the civet or ‘civet cat’). Like civet oil and genuine musk from the deer, the ingredient Castoreum is not currently authorised by the EU for animal ethical reasons and synthetic substitutes are therefore used in perfumes instead. Genuine ambergris is rarely used because of its extremely high price and difficult availability.
examples of fragrances with castoreum/beaver peel
Castoreum is particularly popular in the fragrance world for enhancing a smoky or animalic element in a leather note alongside other notes such as frankincense, oud, styrax and civet, depending on the desired result. Turkish Nishane, for example, uses the ingredient in both the rather mild Afrika Olifant and its controversial counterpart Unutamam (which, with its combination of smoky leather and foul, coffee-impregnated morning breath, is not for the faint-hearted).
Britain's Electimuss London is not to be outdone, using Castoreum in its Patchouli of the Underworld to transform the patchouli wood into a 1970s cigarette-soaked school hall with a linoleum carpet gone over with a mop. Spicy? Sure, but nonetheless ingenious in the way it uncompromisingly uses beaver bark in combination with labdanum to give the main note a completely unexpected twist.
Even a widely popular French unisex brand like BDK has used Castoreum in one of its fragrances, Oud Abramad, which is also the only one in their collections that has the smoky dark note that reveals a hint of synthetic beaver bark but still in a way that most people can relate to. Tougher and more unexpected, however, is when a sophisticated brand like British Roja is not afraid to almost cross the line with the animalistically smoky Fetish Pour Homme (which almost gives the impression of fish smoking) - but always with the elegance and refinement that characterises the perfumer's work.
Natural ingredients are found in Bortnikoff's Mysterious Oud, an oud perfume (or rather extract) that initially feels both complexly floral and spicy from cinnamon, lotus flower and tolu balsam but reveals an underlying animalic note from both oud and Castoreum in symbiosis that makes the creation completely unique.
That's it for a review of the distinctive Castoreum fragrance note. Join us for the next stage in our quest to discover the different fragrances of the perfume world.