Club circle
Sandalwood, cedar, vetiver, oakmoss: the smells of wood, forest floor and roots.
The Woods, Mosses & Roots circle is home to dry, earthy smells. Members talk about cedar shavings, the forest after a storm, vetiver roots, oakmoss and the perfumes that last until evening. Post a walk through the woods, a question about sandalwood or a comparison of two woods on blotters. For your bearings, see the woody fragrance family and the chypre family, where oakmoss lives.
20 posts · 30 active members
amara.oudin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Birmingham ·
Question
At Eid my aunties burn oud chips on charcoal and the whole house holds the smell for days. Someone at uni said the trees are protected now. Is that true?
frankie.incense Fun fact: the FAO note on agarwood trade and CITES says Aquilaria malaccensis, one of the trees oud comes from, was listed in CITES Appendix II in…
sinead.smokein Woods, Mosses & Roots · Limerick ·
QuestionFirst post here. Patchouli turns up in every woody list I read, but a lad at work swears it's a herb. Which is it?
harriet.hay Hello and welcome, sinead.smoke. You may both be a little bit right. Shout if you get stuck.
ruby.sandalin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Perth ·
Snapshot
Days off back home. Split an old dead sandalwood branch behind the shed and the smell came straight out, dusty, warm, a bit sweet. Wattle out everywhere too.
hamish_heatherin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Edinburgh ·
ExerciseAye, a wee one for a dreich weekend. Sharpen a pencil, bring in a pine cone, crack a black peppercorn. Smell them in that order, then backwards, and write down what each one shares with the next. Don't loose the shavings, they're the woodiest of the three.
callum.peat Did it on my break at the depot. Pencil and peppercorn share a dry, dusty bit. The pine cone is the odd one out, sticky and sweet.
noah.fogin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Halifax ·
Snapshot
Fog off the harbour, then rain on the spruce all morning. The trail smelled like a cold Christmas tree soaked in sea water.
maeve.mossin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Galway ·
Snapshot
Here's a thing. The rain stopped at four and I took the dog out the bog road before the light went and the whole place had turned up its volume, wet stone on the walls and the heather gone dark and that brown, almost sweet smell of the bog water in the…
cormac.bog Turf smoke and wet stone. That's my granny's road in Offaly, every word of it.
nnamdi.vetiverin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Nottingham ·
TipWhen vetiver, cedar and sandalwood start smelling the same, I go and stand in the yard for a minute. Comes back every time.
aroha.rain It's olfactory fatigue: the Wikipedia page on olfactory fatigue says sensitivity comes back once you leave the area. Works heaps for me.
aroha.rainin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Wellington ·
Scent diary
Kia ora, big southerly overnight and this morning the bush track behind the ferry terminal smelled heaps green. Crushed a kawakawa leaf: peppery, a bit like bay, a bit like a wet fern. Its spring here so everything is soft and new.
gus_saltmarsh Same up in Auckland, the bush behind the yard smelled like pepper and rain. Kawakawa every time.
priya.cardamomin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Toronto ·
ChallengeThread of the week: describe one wood without using the word 'woody'. 1) Pick a wood you can smell right now: a pencil, a cedar hanger, a log by the fire, a chopping board. 2) Give us three things it smells of, real things, not adjectives. 3) Name the wood at…
juniper_jules Hamster cage, the inside of a hope chest, my sketchbook pencil. Easy one, cedar.
juniper_julesin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Portland ·
Scent diary
Studio notes: I pinned a vetiver strip to the shelf by the wheel and smelled it every morning before opening the clay. The first day it was raw and rooty, like a carrot pulled with the dirt still on. By the weekend it had dried to something smoky and almost…
aroha.rain Its the carrot for me too. Pulled one in the garden this arvo and thought of vetiver straight away.
brynn.pinein Woods, Mosses & Roots · Minneapolis ·
Snapshot
Raking leaves at the park nursery after a night of rain. Wet maple underfoot, balsam fir along the fence, and somebody's woodstove going down the block.
hana.neroliin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Vancouver ·
Question
My grandmother kept her incense in a small sandalwood box. I opened it this weekend for the first time in years and it smells soft, almost like warm milk, not like any wood I know. Is that what sandalwood is supposed to smell like?
nell.wattle Okay, nerd moment: 'milky' is actually how the sandalwood page puts it, soft, warm and creamy. Over here we have a different species, Santalum…
ash.and.emberin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Calgary ·
Discovery
Smelled labdanum for the first time at a friend's place. Thick, dark, sweet, a bit like a leather glove left too close to the woodstove. Nothing like the smoke I know from calls.
ambrose_leather A good hide gone too warm by the stove. I would of known that smell anywhere.
big_dan_vetiverin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Leeds ·
QuestionGot a smelling strip of Iso E Super from a mate who collects raw materials. Everyone says it's woody and velvety. I sniff it and get almost nothing, then twenty minutes later my jumper smells like a pencil case. Is that normal or is my nose broken?
ingrid_berlin Normal for me too. It sits under everything like a bass note you feel more than hear.
ambrose_leatherin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Northampton ·
Memory
Right then. A lady at the autumn craft fair had a tray of smelling strips, and the birch tar one sent me back to the factory floor before I'd put it down. Not every hide smelled like that, only the dark ones for heavy boots, smoky, and it always put me in…
maeve.moss A railway sleeper in the sun and the welt long after the last was out, and I could smell your floor from here, so I could.
gus_saltmarshin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Auckland ·
Question
We plane a lot of cedar in the boat shed and it smells sweet and sharp, nothing like pencils. Is the cedar in perfume even the same tree?
hana.neroli Often not. The cedarwood page says most cedarwood oil is distilled from junipers and cypresses, and only small amounts from true cedars like the…