Virginian cedarwood essential oil

Dry, clean wood, slightly sweet, and almost everyone names the same thing at once: a freshly sharpened pencil.

That association is literally true. For generations this tree’s wood was the wood pencils were made from, so the smell of a school pencil case is its smell. Botanically it is not a cedar but a juniper, Juniperus virginiana, and it carries the cedar name only by trade habit.

The oil is rich in cedrol, and cedrol crystallises in the cold. A bottle kept somewhere cool may grow small white crystals that dissolve when warmed. That is not a sign of spoilage but a sign of an oil that has not had its cedrol taken out.