What Does Styrax Smell Like? Perfume Ingredient Guide

What does styrax smell like in perfume? Styrax smells leathery, balsamic and smoky, with a sweet, cinnamon-like warmth. It adds a rich, ambery depth to a fragrance.

Botanical name	Liquidambar orientalis
Plant part	Balsam from the tree
Origin	Turkey and Honduras
Extraction	Resinoid
Note	Base
Scent family	Woods & Resins
Odour	Leathery, balsamic and smoky, with a sweet, cinnamon-like warmth
Perfume uses	Ambers, leather and spicy blends
Key molecules	Cinnamyl cinnamate, styrene, cinnamic acid
Odour impact	Medium
Odour life on a strip	Very long: lasts for days
Found in	Carissis, Jacinth Jonquil, Neroli Nuance, Oud Octavo

Used within IFRA limits. Impact and odour life are our own studio guide, judged on a smelling strip.

What Is Styrax?

Styrax is a balsam from Liquidambar trees, harvested in Turkey and Central America. The trees are wounded to produce the sticky balsam, which is refined into a resinoid for perfume.

What Does Styrax Smell Like?

Here is how strongly each facet of styrax comes through, from our own smelling-strip notes.

How Perfumers Use Styrax

Perfumers use styrax to add depth to ambers, leathers and spicy blends. It pairs well with labdanum, vanilla and oud.

An ancient balsam

Styrax has been used since ancient times as incense and in perfumed ointments. It is also a source of natural cinnamic notes.

Smell Styrax in Prosody London Perfumes

For styrax at its most expressive, try Oud Octavo. Styrax deepens a rich base of agarwood, labdanum and vanilla. You will also find styrax in Carissis, Jacinth Jonquil and Neroli Nuance.