Talk:Labdanum

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The Word Amber in Perfumery

When amber is mentioned as a perfume, often a simple link is created to the page for fossil amber, which is unrelated, except as an abstract, poetic confusion. I suggest a page for amber (perfumery) is required.

Posting here because untangling the confusion is more likely to interest scholars of labdanum than scholars of (fossil) amber.

Briefly, amber in perfumery means an accord (an abstract scent idea with endless formulations) that evokes multiple ideas. The historical core (arguably) is the desirable but rare ambergris, alongside labdanum which is generally regarded as the closest natural approximation. From there the associations get weird and numerous.

In one direction, amber is associated with plant resins other than labdanum, and then scents that are paired with resinous perfumes, then to something like a warm spicy evocation of an exotic ancient spice trade.

In the other direction, amber was synonymous with ambergris and fossil (and presumably other) amber before they were distinguished as amber gris etcetera. It can be difficult to be sure whether the amber in ambergris isn't also alluding to plant resin as well as the gem. Ambergris was thought to originate as a plant substance before being found on beaches. Meanwhile, amber gemstone was thought to originate as tree resin since antiquity. So the word inherits the idea of tree resin from all three of labdanum, ambergris and amber gemstone.

And because the gemstone is now the primary meaning of amber, the perfume embraces the idea of what an exotic, woody perfume would smell like if it contained a viscous gold liquid from melted gemstones, or if it contained the exotic delights of a Chinese apothecary, to bring the idea around to the suggestion of opium or other imaginary resins.

The result is a confusion so deep that it's trivially easy to find people online who think perfumes contain the fossil, similar to varnishes that contain the dissolved and melted gem but AFAIK aren't particularly great at replicating it's hard crackless lustre. I have no doubt people tried adding it to perfume, but it has little smell, other that a somewhat pineconey smoke when you touch it with a hot wire. There are claims it is used as a fixative but i doubt it.

More certain is that people read about amber in perfume and their imagination runs wild imagining it must smell amazing. Add to that, the floundering confusion of people trying to describe an amber accord, and we arrive at the need for a wikipedia entry for what perfumers mean by amber. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-36647-06 (talk) 02:33, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I rarely tag any statement...

...but here I am tempted:

The false beards worn by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were actually the labdanum soaked hair of these goats.

Now, this assertion can be found all through the "new age aromatherapy" blogosphere and in internetland, and in mirrors of Wikipedia. But where is this mentioned in a text on ancient Egypt?--Wetman (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Four sources added. Looking for more recent sources.CWatchman (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pharaoh's beard

Sometimes the false beards of the Egyptian Pharaohs were made of wood and sometimes they were made of gold. Many times they were made of goats hair. Sometimes these goat hair beards were held together by bees wax but most often were held together by labdanum. Labdanum was considered the food of the Egyptian god Amun. CWatchman (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On pharaohs' beards (take 2)

@Wetman and CWatchman: I thought you'd both like to know that I dug through the sources cited to support the claim about pharaohs' beards, but found no support for it. I deleted that claim altogether as unreferenced and dubious. I did add a sentence about Osiris's beard, though! My detailed reasoning can be found in the edit summaries. Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 04:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]