Reference point
Dried vetiver roots, snapped in two.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Earth, smoke, and a sweet note like burnt bread. Very heavy, almost motionless; you have to bring it right to your nose to catch it.
This is the standard reference for the idea of a base note. The trade literature uses this very plant — vetiver — as the classic example of the base stage, and it is real, cheap, and on sale at incense shops.
What stands out is that it hardly changes over time. Smelled just after snapping and again four hours later, it gives almost the same smell — the very definition of a base-stage component.
How to smell it
Buy a bundle of dried vetiver roots from an incense shop or a traditional medicine shop. Snap a piece of root to expose the inside, bring it right to your nose and smell slowly. Don’t smell from a distance — the molecules are too heavy to travel to you on their own.
Why this one is hard
Because it does not come to your nose. People used to smells that drift towards them conclude that vetiver is faint, when in fact it is very strong but motionless.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Vetiver root
Woody & Resinous family
Vetiver is a root, so it has a clear, dry earthy note; sandalwood is heartwood, so it has a creamy note. Both last, but vetiver is heavier and less sweet.
Scientific note
Vetiver root contains very heavy sesquiterpene alcohols and ketones, among them alpha-vetivone, which boils at around 300 degrees. Their high molecular weight plus polar groups keep them almost stationary on a smelling strip. That is why vetiver is used as a fixative: it not only stays itself but also slows the evaporation of the lighter compounds blended with it.
In Vietnamese life
Vetiver root is the main ingredient of traditional incense sticks in many northern craft villages. The smell many people call the smell of incense, or of communal houses and pagodas, is in fact largely the smell of this root burning.