Collection: Cedar Fragrances

Cedar certainly deserves the title of one of the first natural fragrances used by man for flavoring and the creation of perfumes. In ancient Egyptian mythology around 6, 000 years ago, the cedar was a symbol of heaven, earth, and the underworld, and its scent was closely associated with all that was sacred and divine the Lebanese cedar was the cedar of choice at this time, to be more precise, but well discuss that later. This led to the emergence of some specific procedural details of ancient rituals: for example, the priests of Osiris used to chew cedar sap in the practice of worship to forge a better connection with the deity. From a botanical point of view, the Cedar lat. Cedrus is a genus of the Conifer family lat. Pinaceae which consists of four species: the cedar of Lebanon lat. Cedrus libani, the cedar of Cyprus a subspecies of the cedar of Lebanon, namely lat. Cedrus libani var. brevifolia, the cedar of the Atlas lat. Cedrus atlantica and the cedar of the Himalayas lat. Cedrus deodara. lebanese flag There are many pine trees and other conifers with high scent value, but today we are going to focus on what is called a cedar note and how drastically different it can be. By the way, not only real natural cedars can be perceived as such - there are a large number of so-called fake cedars, which are also widely used in perfumery. First, lets take a look at the cedar of Lebanon lat. Cedrus libani mentioned above. It is a symbol of Lebanon: you can see it on the flag, and it symbolizes eternal life thanks to its naturally high resistance to rot. In ancient times, it helped make the Phoenicians the first maritime trading nation in the world: the wood of the conifers was known to be soft and light enough to make it easier to harvest the timber and resist water later, and vast cedar forests thrived across Mount Lebanon at this time. Cedrus libani, or cedar of Lebanon The Cedar of Lebanon is one of the most important Christian symbols and appears frequently in the Bible. It was said to be used as a building material for the Temple in Jerusalem 2 Chronicles 2: 3, 7;1 Kings 5: 20 and that it was abundant like the sycamore-fig in the foothills 1 Kings 10: 27, VIN, excerpt. He is also majestic and noble as a righteous and vigorous human being, just and beautiful as one who has nothing to hide from God Psalm 92: 12. The essential oil of cedar from Lebanon is one of the oldest fragrant materials: it was used to clean the participants of religious offerings from impurity with hyssop Numbers 19: 6. The scent oil possesses the yellowish color and distinctive herbaceous-woody scent, but it is no longer produced. Steffen Arctander mentioned in his famous book, that today there are few - if any - perfumers who have seen and smelled real cedar oil from Lebanon p. 109, which is still an honorable and revered material with a distinctive character nonetheless. Most often, Cedar of Lebanon essential oil is replaced with an essential oil from a different, but related or visually similar plant. One of these plants is the Atlas cedar lat. Cedrus atlantica, which is a cedar native to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Atlas cedar essential oil is one of the raw materials of cedar. It is a viscous and slightly nebulous fluid, varying in color from yellowish hues to dark cinnamon orange. Unaltered essential oil can possess a multi-faceted, but slightly dreadful scent: the medically camphorated aspects along with the sweet undertones of honey and mimosa are adorned with unmistakable urinal undertones, which most people dont like. between us. The good news is that the aromatic compounds like resinoid and absolute extracted from the raw material almost smell like natural cedarwood and are plucked from any unwanted stains. Cedrus atlantica, or the Atlas cedar The smell of Atlas cedar oil varies widely, mainly due to the dissimilarity of the base lots not only wood pulp is used, but also stumps, shavings and sawdust and methods of distillation which is sometimes preceded by what is called chemical pulping, or alkaline maceration. Atlas cedar oil is widely used in perfumery as a fixer and base component - together with labdanum it blends into the base cord with great tenacity, suitable for woody and flowery scents. On top of all this, Atlas cedar oil is relatively inexpensive and almost never adulterated. Cedrus deodara, or deodar cedar, or Himalayan cedar, or deodar devdar devadar devadaru The closest relative of the Atlas cedar is the Himalayan cedar, or deodar lat. Cedrus deodara - a gigantic tree with a height of up to 50 meters and a trunk diameter of up to at 3 meters. Himalayan cedar wood is generally not good enough, which is why most of the harvested wood is used for essential oil extraction up to 2. 5 percent yield from the mass of material dry with an overall production of up to 200 tonnes per year. Deodar oil is thick and viscous, with a color ranging from yellow to cinnamon brown and with a characteristic woody-sweet, almost balsamic scent. It starts with the same cresol-medicinal camphoric undertones youd expect, so it can reach the tarry base with a slight connotation of needle foliage. The ingredients responsible for the real smell of cedar are derivatives of the sesquiterpene called bisabolene, terpenes from the himachalene family - isomers that differ in the location of the double bond. Such an essential oil contains 30 to 50 percent of -, 15 to 20 percent of - and about 10 percent of -himachalene. But thats not the whole story. You may know that there is a virgin cedar oil. Common names for the plant in question include eastern red cedar, but botanically it is not a cedar at all - it is a juniper, which is part of the taxonomically extended family. cypress lat. Cupressaceae. Its official name is Virginia Juniper or lat. Juniperus virginiana, but it is perceived as the one and only cedar by many perfumers around the world do you remember the windy path of aldehydes and mimosa.