Ambergris is the only perfumery ingredient that I can think of that comes from a living animal that is neither tortured, imprisoned or outright killed to harvest the substance. It is a solid, waxy and flammable substance that is grey to black in color. It is produced in the digestive system of sperm whales and is regurgitated naturally. It then floats on the sea for perhaps tens of years before washing up on the beaches of countries such as India, China, Japan and Australia among others.

Although all amber will emit a pleasant fragrance when heated, don’t dash off and incinerate your jewelry or heaven forbid, your wife or girlfriends jewelry. Besides, quite a lot of amber jewelry contains prehistoric insects as a selling point and I am pretty certain that burning insects, prehistoric or not, is not a pleasant scent.

Before you run out and light your aloe vera plant you have on your windowsill on fire, be advised that this aloe (aloe ferox) is a different plant. It is also a part of the Asphodelaceae family and it can also be used in the same way as aloe vera for cuts, wounds, and burns as well as constipation and indigestion. The big difference is the wonderful smell that Aloe ferox gives when burned.

Agarwood (or “Agar”) is the dark resinous heartwood that is formed in Aquilaria trees when they become infected with Aspergillus sp. ad Fusarium sp. The resin this forms produces the fragrant substance. The more resin the wood contains the more aromatic the fragrance and the heavier the wood becomes. Excellent agar wood will not float and for that reason the Japanese call it jinkoh, the sinking wood.

Gum arabic, also known as gum acacia, chaar gund, char goond or meska, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. The gum is harvested commercially from wild trees throughout the Sahel from Senegal and Sudan to Somalia, although it has been historically cultivated in Arabia and West Asia.