Absinthe / Artemesia / Wormwood

have you sampled Ungaro I Asha...? i guess this scent has used wormwood explicitly..i would however, love to hear more on this particular note...ant eg's of scents where it's used to derive a very prominent effect?

What a difficult-to-describe scent! I've tried some of the M.Micallef "Black Sashka" this weekend.

The closest I've experienced to actual wormwood is Ava Luxe's Absinthe. It's the closest thing to wormwood essential oil I have ever smelled.

Any views regarding By Kilian - A taste of Heaven? I don't know wich smell the Absynthe exactly is..

This is a difficult note for me. Most of the scents that are comprised of it don't do much for me. I did have a bottle of Slatkin's Black Fig and Absinthe at one point - the dry down well into the application was really quite nice, but the rest of it was sort of meh.

I tried the 20 per cent absolute, provided by SculptureofSoul as a part of Natural perfume sniffing.

Wormwood Absinthium -- golden yellow -- oily and raw, first goes on sharp but mellows to a camphorous woody note that would perform nicely if paired with luscious tropical florals. There is an uncunny resemblance to green tea in its drydown.

Exactly, artemisia does not smell like licorice or anise at all, it is a dry, bitter, kinda pungent smell and actually is one of my favorite notes.

It can be found in almost all the "powerhouse" fragrances of the 80's like Drakkar Noir, Lapidus pH, Sung Homme, Quorum, Tsar, Giorgio, Polo (green), Witness, Kouros, Aramis, Gucci pH, Jazz, etc, etc..., but in some modern perfumes too like Le Male.

Any good supplier for this??

Just be careful with this and other essential oils identified as hazardous. Google "wormwood cautions" & see what you find. Same with mugwort, wintergreen & others.

From www.drugs.com

"Contraindications
Avoid use with hypersensitivity to any of the components of wormwood, particularly the essential oil. It may be contraindicated in patients with an underlying defect with hepatic heme synthesis (thujone is a porphyrogenic terpenoid).
Pregnancy/Lactation
Documented abortifacient and emmenagogue effects. Avoid use.
Wormwood Interactions
None well documented.
Wormwood Adverse Reactions
Thujone produces a state of excitement and is a powerful convulsant. Ingestion of wormwood may result in absinthism, a syndrome characterized by digestive disorders, thirst, restlessness, vertigo, trembling of the limbs, numbness of the extremities, loss of intellect, delirium, paralysis, and death.
Toxicology
Wormwood is classified as an unsafe herb by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because of the neurotoxic potential of thujone and its derivatives. The safety of wormwood is poorly documented despite its long history as a food additive. Convulsions, dermatitis, and renal failure have been documented."

I'm working on building a fragrance of my own around Artemisia absinthium, which I used to grow in my garden and recently obtained some of the essential oil to experiment with: the oil is a lovely turquoise blue colour and smells fantastic - certainly not anisic - it is rather like a heady, woody kind of chamomile and very dry. I love it but am a bit concerned the resulting fragrance might not be safe to wear whilst driving if I use much of it!

I got mine from Hermitage Oils who ship worldwide.

Have you tried Absolument Abisinthe by Parfums Interdit

Is wormwood the same thing as armoise? I've read somewhere that it is.

Not really, armoise oil is made from Artemisia vulgaris, also known as Common Mugwort. Wormwood usually (though not always) means Artemisia absinthium.

The Artemisia genus contains a large number of species a few of which are used in perfumery and the common names used for them are anything but straightforward so Ive put together a blog post explaining some of it, together with the way the botanical classification system works and the information needed to exactly describe a particular plant used in perfumery, with Artemisia absinthium as the starting point and links to further information elsewhere.

Surprised you didn't mention Yatagan which is chock full of artemesia.

I find it interesting that certain fragrances try to replicate the smell of Absinthe.

I'm an Absinthe connoisseur and have bottles of new and old Absinthe.

The currently available Absinthe drinks are very heavy on the anise. The anise usually overpowers the other herbs that are in it.

I have a couple of pre-ban Absinth'e from the turn of the century. This is the stuff that Van Gough and others used to drink regularly. It contains many herbs that no longer exist on the planet. When Absinthe was banned, they stopped planting those herbs which is why we no longer have them. The vintage Absinthe is very complex and herbal. I accidentally spilled some of the vintage kind on my hand and it smelled wonderful for a couple of hours.

The question is, when they market a scent that they call Absinth, what are they basing the scent on? If it was based on the new ones, Anise and Star Anise overpower everything.

There are very few vintage bottles left and they sell for a ton of money. Do you think they used those as a reference for the smell?

I have tried a few colognes that state there is Absinthe in them, but none of them smelled like the real thing.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want a fragrance based on the new Absinthe's because the anise overpowers everything else.

BTW, Czech Absinthe is labelled Absinth (with no e at the end). These taste horrible in general. I had one that was so bitter that it made me queasy.

So in some cases are they using the word Absinthe as a marketing ploy?

You have actual original bottles of Pernod Fils? Do you mind if I ask which? That's very impressive stuff. I'm not sure what herbs you're referring to that aren't grown anymore, but are you familiar with the brand Jade? The guy behind it, Ted Breaux, is one of the most insane absinthe geek/scientists around and with the help of some generous absinthe collectors, had a lot of gc/ms done on those original absinthes. Jade is rather expensive but the PF1901 is about as literal of a mimicking of the original absinthe as you'll ever come across, down to using some of the same distillery equipment he purchased from their old factory. Some more info on it: http://www.absintheonline.com/acatal..._absinthe.html and http://www.bestabsinthe.com/1901.htm

But yes, I agree, absinthe perfume seems like a fantasy idea on what people think absinthe might smell like (L'artisan's fou d'absinthe is hilariously misguided). A true absinthe perfume is probably not something that would get many compliments.

I have a full bottle of Pernod Fils and another bottle that has only about 1/4 remaining (I drank and gave samples to a few friends of that bottle which was full when I got it.
I do know Ted but I haven't been in touch with him for a years. Ted sent me a couple of his lab samples at one point and I had sent him some other Absinthe's that he wanted to analyze (one of the ones I sent him was the Czech Logan one - I couldn't drink it. It tasted horrible). I think it may have been Ted who told me about some of the plants that no longer exist. The reason was that during the ban, there was no longer a use for them and because they didn't bother replanting them, they disappeared. I have tried a couple of versions of Jade and it was better than anything else that was around at the time. I didn't like the New Orleans one though and still may have some of that left. I didn't know about PF 1901. I'll have to give that a try in the near future.

I love the smell of Pernod Fils (even the Spanish one) but it's not a smell that most people like. I've also found that people who haven't developed a taste for Absinthe think they all smell the same and taste the same.

I think the note typically refers to Artemisia absinthium, the wormwood plant, which definitely does still exist and has a lovely dry, bitter, and green smell of its own when tinctured. It was an extremely popular ingredient in the late 70s thru the mid-80s.

You are one lucky man

I've only smelled pure wormwood on a couple of occasions and don't really recall what it smells like on it's own, so you're probably right about that but I wonder why they wouldn't call it Wormwood rather than Absinthe. Most people who know about Absinthe would know about wormwood. Absinthe doesn't really smell like wormwood. The wormwood is in there but so are a bunch of other plants that mix together to give it the smell and taste that it has. Different parts of the wormwood plant may have a different aroma as well. Most people these days only know Absinthe that has an overpowering amount of anise. People also often say that it's supposed to smell like anise but that isn't true. In the vintage absinthe's I tried, anise was there but it didn't overpower everything else like most commercial absinthe's do today.

The extinct plants I'm referring to aren't any of the important plants in Absinthe.

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Actually, to put this in perspective, per ounce, many fragrances cost more than vintage Absinthe.

So... what fragrances do you gents think best assimilate a good absinthe drink, both new and old?

Does the Nasamotto rate?

When I made my fragrance based on absinthe I called it Artemis - after the key ingredient Artemisia absinthium - and I deliberately made it without any anise (or anything that smells like it) to avoid it ending up too much like the drink and to allow the herb to come through clearly on its own.

I've also written a short article on my blog about the various Artemisia species used in perfumery.

BTW I too am envious of the antique absinthe bottles!

If you can find it, try to smell Ava Luxe Absinthe, I'd love to hear your impressions of it compared to real absinthe. I found it amazingly realistic (as a non-connoisseur of absinthe).

I'm going to buy some samples and decants of various Absinthe fragrances and will try to compare it to the vintage Pernod Fils (it's the only vintage one I have at the moment. Beware though, if you decide to buy some vintage absinthe because there are some fakes. I had a thread going on the old Absinthe forum about a supposedly sealed Absinthe bottle that I bought from an ebay seller who was buying empty bottles and filling them with some sort of green liquid. Ted had warned me about it because the bottle wasn't blown glass as it should have been. Unfortunately I had already sent the guy the money via wire transfer so all I could do was give him negative feedback. The seller was assuming that I would keep the bottle sealed and never uncork it. Even if ted had not told me about the bottle, I would have opened it to drink some and would have found out. If anyone is thinking of trying some vintage Absinthe, be careful and try to buy from a trusted source. I don't know what was in the fake bottle but it was bright green and possibly toxic.

Unlike many of the Absinthes that are out now Pernod Fills really tastes good which explains why it was so popular.

At the moment I only have Pernod Fils which was the most popular Absinthe, so I can do a direct comparison to that. It actually smells so nice that I would wear a cologne that smelled like that.

Those attempting comparisons with mass-market fragrances may find it helpful to know that this is what the scent notes usually mean when they refer to various Artemisia species using something other than their botanical names:

Armoise usually refers to the essential oil of Artemisia alba
Artemisia alone usually refers to the essential oil of Artemisia annua
Wormwood generally means Artemisia absinthium - the essential herb in the drink Absinthe
Davana - is Artemisia pallens
Estragon - is Artemisia dracunculus sativa - possibly more familiar as the tarragon used in cooking

But of course the usual caveat about scent notes applies that they are a description of a smell not a statement of the ingredients in a perfume, and often that smell will have been created using synthetics rather than the essential oil or other extract of the real herb or flower.

Does fennel have a smell? Fennel is often used in Absinthes

Yes, fennel seed is very anisic.

most of what i got out of nasamotto's absinthe was a tonka bean type vibe, sweet but not too sweet