The autumn equinox switch: from citrus to amber

The autumn equinox falls on 22 September, and with it the point at which a bright citrus opening stops doing the work it did in July. The library reflects the shift in raw numbers: 153 fragrances in its citrus register and 95 in its aquatic one, against 199 built on amber, the fourth-largest family on the site.

That is not an argument for retiring the summer bottle. It is an argument for understanding what changes underneath it. Amber, benzoin and myrrh are resinous materials, and they behave differently from the volatile citrus oils that open most warm-weather perfumes. They sit low in a composition, they are what is still there after several hours indoors, and they hold other materials in place rather than announcing themselves at the top.

The pivot: citrus sitting on an amber base

The clearest illustration of the switch is a perfume that contains both registers at once. Queen of Scots from Black Moon Botanica, the magickal goods shop founded by Brooke in Edinburgh's Old Town in 2019, is filed as citrus, woody and amber in that order. Its notes take in bergamot, lemon and eucalyptus alongside sandalwood, frankincense, lavender and geranium, and the base is given plainly as cedar, amber and spices.

The opening belongs to the summer half of the catalogue and the base to the autumn half. That is the whole transition in one £15 perfume oil, and it is a useful thing to smell before committing to anything heavier.

Two other oils from the same house take the same amber foundation in different directions. Belladonna puts jasmine, blackberry leaf and orange blossom in the heart over a base of amber, musk and woods, with citron and blackcurrant in the mix: still bright, but anchored. Black Cat goes further, pairing frankincense, myrrh, violet and amber with tuberose over a base of patchouli, cedar, jasmine and bergamot. Same price, same format, three positions along the same line.

What resin does that citrus cannot

Myrrh is carried by 118 fragrances in the library, and its most frequent companions there are frankincense, patchouli, amber and labdanum. That company tells you what it is usually asked to do: sit in the bottom of a composition and give it weight and a slightly bitter, dry edge that stops sweetness from running away.

Opium Den from Seance Perfumes is a straightforward example. The Los Angeles house is run by founder and perfumer Lacey Walker, a hairstylist of twenty years, and the fragrance lists frankincense and myrrh with orange blossom, cream, cedar, patchouli, coffee, amber and vanilla. The orange blossom is the last remnant of the summer register; the resins and coffee are what make it wearable at a desk in October. It is sold as an eau de parfum at $125 and as a $32 frankincense and orange blossom version, so the same idea exists in two weights.

Benzoin is rarer: 107 fragrances, most often beside vanilla, labdanum, sandalwood and amber. It is the sweet end of the resin family, closer to balsam than to incense. It appears in Hoary Date from the Romanian house Toskovat', where a long note list runs from aldehydes, lemon and bergamot at one end to opoponax, myrrh, benzoin, labdanum, oakmoss and amber at the other. Read top to bottom, that list is itself a description of the season changing. It is $326 and currently out of stock.

Three ways into the amber register

Amorphous Perfume, the house of multidisciplinary artist Kalliope Amorphous in Providence, offers the widest span. Midnight Mass is filed as smoky, amber and woody, with frankincense, myrrh, ancient moss, merlot, antique woods, extinguished candle wick, sandalwood, church incense, beeswax and smoke. It is the most literal reading of autumn among these, and at the time of writing it is out of stock, as are the oakmoss-and-amber Ethervelvet and the clove-and-cinnamon Pomander Forest.

The one in stock is the one that points past autumn entirely. Snow Leopard sets amber under Mysore sandalwood, Himalayan cedarwood, fir, frosted grass and eight-year double-distilled patchouli, with mountain snow as a stated note. It is sold as an eau de parfum at $170 and as perfume oil from $31 for 5ml, which makes it one of the cheaper ways to test a house whose catalogue reaches $280.

For a denser version of the same materials, Shamamah from Sultan Pasha Attars carries amber, benzoin, incense, frankincense, saffron, cardamom, honey, beeswax, tobacco, thirty-year patchouli, oud and rose. That is an attar, oil-based and built from naturals, and it is priced from $121.29 for 1ml. The house's Fougère Noire makes the seasonal point differently: Calabrian lemon and bergamot at the top, then an unusually long base of musk, amber, ambergris, tonka bean, vetiver, cedar, Mysore sandalwood and patchouli. A citrus fougère that is really an amber, which is exactly the shape of the next eight weeks.

Practical notes on the switch

Three things are worth knowing before reordering the shelf.

1. Oils and sprays are not interchangeable. Several of the fragrances here exist in both formats at different prices, and the oil is usually the cheaper entry.
2. Stock moves. Small houses make in batches, and four of the fragrances named above are currently unavailable, so an amber shortlist is best kept longer than one name.
3. The amber family is large enough to browse by budget. Everything amber under $60 is a reasonable place to see how wide the register runs.

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Where to start

• Queen of Scots, £15. The transition itself in one bottle: lemon and bergamot over cedar, amber and spices. For anyone who is not ready to give up citrus yet.
• Opium Den, $32–$125. Frankincense and myrrh with coffee, amber and vanilla, available as a $125 eau de parfum or a $32 frankincense and orange blossom version. For a first proper resin fragrance.
• Snow Leopard, $31–$170. Amber under sandalwood, Himalayan cedarwood and fir, in oil from 5ml or as an eau de parfum. For readers who want the cold end of the family rather than the warm one.