A Perfumer’s Dream Exhibit: Whale Vomit?

An exhibition at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo is featuring a rare chunk of one of the most coveted (and priciest, with a market value of about $20 per gram) ingredients known to perfumers - ambergris. Also called “grey amber” or “floating gold,” ambergris is actually bile secreted by sperm whales. Fresh ambergris smells absolutely horrible, but, after a few years’ exposure to the elements, the substance develops a sweet, musky and alluring smell that leading fragrance makers say adds a distinct and highly appealing character. While synthetic versions have been developed for the fragrance industry, genuine ambergris has become the stuff of legend.

Upon discovering that a small amount of natural ambergris had been carefully stored at the Tokyo museum for years, Kanebo Cosmetics struck a bargain to excise and process a tiny sample. Dissolved in alcohol and matured over a period of several months, the final distinctively sweet smelling product is now part of the “Great Mammals Exhibition: Inhabitants of the Seas” which opened on July 10 and will be available to curious whiffers through September 26.