Scent of Seasoning Firewood

The wind is relatively still with low cloud cover hanging over a densely wooded mountain valley. The air is crisp, but not biting. You started the fire inside and are headed out to gather firewood for the rest of the evening. The leaves are moist beneath your feet. You lightly swing two leather-handled, waxed canvas firewood carriers. This smells like the calm of knowing that the restorative rest of winter in nature awaits you inside the cabin.

What is the smell of this moment? It will differ by the forest, the weather, and the person smelling and remembering. The cabin would likely have quartered hardwood logs stacked for 2-3 years before they would be fully seasoned depending on type of wood, weather, and storage. This means some of the stack will be new, damp, and still sappy. Other parts of the stack will smell of dried wood ready to burn.

There are some archetypal scents supporting the memories:

Humus: This is the smell of freshly plowed earth, musty, dirty and wet. This is soil after the rain. The critical material that cannot be extracted from other fragrance materials is geosmin. Humans can smell geosmin at 5 parts per trillion, meaning that even 0.001% added to a fragrance concentrate will be noticable. The compound was identified first in 1965 and biosynthesized first in 1981. It has only recently become available for use in DIY perfumery. A product of algae and bacteria in soil and water, geosmin is responsible for the peculiar earthy smell of beets as well as the muddy, off smell that freshwater fish and poorly treated water can have.

Fungus: Porcini, boletus edulis, mushrooms are frequently found growing in the soil beneath trees, from spruce and fir to beech, birch, and oak. In perfumery, the absolute Cepes (mushroom) is extracted from the porcini. It supports the earthy, rooty scent of geosmin with a richer, more evocative bouquet of fungus, earth, moss, roots, hay, and seaweed.

Moss: Oakmoss, extracted from the the Evernia prunastri species of lichen, is historically one of the most important fixatives in perfumery. It is now the subject of much wistful consternation due to restricts on its use by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) due to sensitization to the naturally-occurring compound atranol. Low atranol versions of the absolute have been developed through additional purfication processes, although many complain that they do not capture the complexity of the previous products. Many use the synthetic evernyl to try to integrate the scent profile. It is difficult to describe the scent without reference to the thing itself. Mossy notes are green, oily, earthy, hay, tobacco, woody, herbaceous, with some marine aspects.

Smoke: It is difficult to evoke the scent of a wood fire. Hardwoods like cherry, hickory, and oak are used for many reasons in fires for cooking and heating, often because of the combination of sweetness and savory notes, particular from the hickory wood. It is used to smoke meat for this reason. The oak wood smell is more subdued, less sweet, but very pleasant. The soft wood cedar and pine are more commonly used in outdoor fires due to their higher sap and resin content, creating creosote in the smoke, and safety issues from the way they pop more when their oils are burnt. There are not too many options for smoke in perfumery, but enough to have you confused. Rectified birch tar oil could be used at very low concentrations. Cade oil and guaiacol are frequently mentioned. A vetiver from Java could work as well. The smoke in memory here is at a very low concentration and ethereal, just barely a reminder that the fire is awaiting your return. Some incense materials could support the sense of dissipating smoke.

Wood: Virginia cedarwood for a dry, sharp woodiness. Perhaps Atlas cedarwood to warm this up to match the dampness of the seasoning wood. Oakwood notes could be used sparingly so as to avoid a whiskey connotation.

Sap: Tree sap is primarily water and sugar. It does have a sweet scent and differs by species, but is not the powerful scent of resin (see below). Maple syrup is condensed tree sap. Cistus absolute could work to bring the sweet, amber, wood, phenolic note of the seasoning fire wood.

Resin: Resin is only found in coniferous trees. From pine, turpentine is the distilled oil and is mainly composed of alpha and beta pinene.

Ozone: Fresh air, fresh mountain air. Aire before a thunderstorm. Ozone drove the entire perfumery industry mad in the 1990’s, mostly the watery freshness of calone. Verbenol, which is the allylic oxidation of alpha pinene and is found in verbena and frankincense oils, has a piney fresh ozone scent. This could be added with the synthetic, or as part of the incense used to lift the fresh smoke accord.

Leather: Your gloves, the handles on the firewood carriers, your boots, your belt. All of these add fleeting, but strong leather scents as they brushed against the wood or mix with the heat of your body.

Musk: Your own smell on the rarely washed jacket. The deer and other animals nearby. This is very faint, but lifts the other scents to your attention. A small dose of ambrettolide would achieve this effect without ending in a mess of white musk.