Birch tar: the smoky bark tar at the heart of leather accords
In perfumery, birch means birch tar oil, made by heating birch bark without air, with a smoky, woody, tarry smell. It is a pillar of leather accords, allowed only in rectified form.
Where does birch tar come from?
Birch tar comes from the dry distillation of birch bark, explains Wikipedia's article on birch bark tar. It is one of humanity's oldest materials: Neanderthals were already producing it as an adhesive some 200,000 years ago. The French Wikipedia entry notes that it is rich in phenols such as guaiacol, cresol, xylenol and creosol.
Birch tar also served leather. Russia leather was oiled with birch bark oil after tanning, which made it water-resistant, kept insects away and gave it a distinctive, pleasant aroma seen as a mark of quality.
What does birch tar smell like?
Birch tar smells smoky, tarry and leathery, with a vegetal facet. The IFRA Fragrance Ingredient Glossary describes rectified birch tar oil as woody, warm and smoky.
What does birch tar do in a perfume?
Birch tar is a base note that imparts a leathery, smoky character. By the turn of the 20th century it had become a specialty perfumery material, especially in the leather and tobacco genre and to a lesser extent in chypres, typically together with castoreum and isobutyl quinoline. It sits at the heart of the leather accord, next to tobacco and labdanum, in the leather family.
What else should you know about birch tar?
- The IFRA standard on birch wood pyrolysate, in its 2013 version (Amendment 47), bans crude oils from the wood or bark of Betula pubescens, pendula, lenta or alba: only rectified oils that meet the limits on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are allowed, as the complete IFRA Standards set out.
- The Class on allergens and IFRA explains how these standards are built.
Often paired with
Further reading
- Birch bark tar en.wikipedia.org
- Goudron de bouleau (French Wikipedia) fr.wikipedia.org
- IFRA Fragrance Ingredient Glossary (April 2020 edition) ifrafragrance.org
- The complete IFRA Standards, up to and including the 51th Amendment (January 2024) ifrafragrance.org
Birch tar in the feed
callum.peatin Wearing Fragrance · Glasgow ·
Question
Layering something lighter over birch tar
My birch scent is a running joke at home, and now my partner has asked if I could soften it for her sister's wedding. Can you layer something lighter over a smoky birch scent, or does it all turn to mud?
ingrid_berlin Put the quiet one underneath, not on top. A musk or a soft wood as the bass, then less birch over it.
maeve.mossin Home Fragrance & Candles · Galway ·
Scent diary
First turf fire of the autumn in the front room
Here's a thing. We lit the first turf fire of the autumn last night, and this morning the front room still smells of it, sweet and earthy, a bit like strong tea left stewing on the hob and a bit like the bog road after rain. The dog came in from the yard and…
cormac.bog Turf fire and wet wool, that's my granny's kitchen in Roscommon. I could smell your post.
ambrose_leatherin Home Fragrance & Candles · Northampton ·
Scent diary
Polishing boots in the back porch on a Sunday
Right then. Sunday job: boots on newspaper in the back porch, a tin of dubbin and a brush. The porch smells of the factory floor for an hour after, wax and hide and a bit of something smoky. Forty years around a good hide and I should have known you never…
sinead.smoke Dubbin and smoke, that's my whole comfort zone in one porch.
ambrose_leatherin Seasons & Celebrations · Northampton ·
Scent diary
Treacle toffee and the bonfire on the rec
Right then. The posters are up for the fireworks on the rec, and I've started smelling Bonfire Night before it's here: damp leaves, somebody's garden fire, the first wood burners going along the terraces. On the night it'll be woodsmoke, spent sparklers and…
callum.peat Bonfire Night is the one night a year nobody at home moans about the smoke on my coat.
priya.cardamomin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Toronto ·
ChallengeDescribe a wood without saying 'woody'
Thread 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.
ambrose_leatherin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Northampton ·
Memory
Birch tar and the hides at the factory
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.