Cut a fresh branch of amyris and you can set it alight. The wood is so soaked in resin that it burns like a torch even when green, which is why Haitian farmers call it bois chandelle, candlewood.
Amyris balsamifera grows across the Caribbean, with Haiti as the main source. Steam-distilled, it gives a soft, dry, faintly sweet woody oil that sits somewhere between cedar and sandalwood. Perfumers value it as a fixative, the quiet base material that makes everything above it last longer.
There is a label problem here. Amyris is often sold as West Indian sandalwood, and it is not sandalwood. It has no botanical link to the Santalum trees that give the real thing. It caught on for a blunt reason: it is far cheaper, and it does not draw on an over-harvested species. Honest suppliers say so plainly.
The material got its moment in 2012, when Francis Kurkdjian built Amyris Homme around it. He set amyris against iris, coffee and milk chocolate over tonka and oud. Kurkdjian has pointed out that the word amyris hides iris inside it, the note that pairs with the wood at the heart.
Amyris will not fool a trained nose into thinking it is Mysore sandalwood. It is drier and a shade more bitter. What it does do is give you that creamy woody base honestly, without felling a protected tree, which is exactly why modern houses reach for it.
Prefer the creamy woody base without the niche markup? Our Amyris Wood (our take on MFK Amyris Homme) rebuilds it in a UK-made 35% extrait. See the Maison Francis Kurkdjian collection or the best MFK dupes in the UK.
