Found in Juniperus virginiana (Virginia cedarwood), Cupressus funebris (Chinese cedarwood)
Appearance
White to pale yellow crystalline solid
Odor Strength
Medium
Producing Countries
USA (Virginia), China, Morocco
Pyramid
Base
Near-odourless white crystals that smell, faintly, of the inside of a cedar hope chest — dry, slightly camphoraceous, more felt than smelled. The principal sesquiterpene alcohol (C₁₅H₂₆O) of cedarwood oil, and the molecule that gives cedar its fixative backbone.
Barely there on first sniff — a soft, dry cedarwood whisper with a faint camphoraceous edge. Warmer and smoother than the sharper cedrene hydrocarbons, without any of the pencil-shaving bite of raw cedar shavings. Closer to the smell of an old wooden drawer lining than to freshly cut timber. The camphor note is not medicinal but structural, like the ghost of menthol translated into wood. On skin, it reads as clean, neutral warmth — less assertive than sandalwood, less smoky than guaiacwood, less sweet than Virginia cedar oil itself.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Faint camphoraceous-woody whisper, almost subliminal. Dry cedar pith. More tactile than olfactory — a sense of wood grain rather than wood scent.
After a few hours
After a few hours
The camphor edge retreats. What remains is a neutral, warm woodiness: soft, matte, and very persistent. Clean without being soapy.
After a few days
After a few days
A barely perceptible dry-wood base note, still present on fabric and blotters well past 48 hours. The fixative function outlasts the perceptible scent.
The Full Story
Pure cedrol is almost odourless. This is the paradox: the molecule most responsible for the tenacity of cedarwood oil barely registers on a blotter strip in isolation. What it contributes is not character but duration — a dry, faintly camphoraceous woody murmur that persists for days. TGSC documents 400 hours of substantivity at 20% in dipropylene glycol. Nothing else in the cedar fraction comes close.
Cedrol constitutes 16–25% of Virginia cedarwood oil (Juniperus virginiana) according to ISO standards, alongside α-cedrene (20–35%) and thujopsene (10–25%). Chinese cedarwood oil (Cupressus funebris) runs higher, sometimes exceeding 30%. The molecule crystallises out of crude oil at room temperature — white, waxy plates with a melting point around 86 °C (literature values range 55–86 °C depending on polymorph and purity). This crystallisation behaviour is exploited industrially: cooling crude cedarwood oil precipitates cedrol, which is then filtered, washed, and recrystallised to >98% purity.
In the perfumer’s palette, cedrol functions as a fixative and volume builder rather than a headline note. It extends the woody phase of a composition without adding colour or sweetness. It is also the starting material for two important derivatives: cedryl acetate (CAS 77-54-3), made by acetylation with acetic anhydride, which adds a softer, more diffusive woody-amber quality; and Cedramber (cedrol methyl ether, CAS 19870-74-7), produced by methylation, which pushes the molecule toward dry ambergris territory.
Beyond perfumery, cedrol has documented pharmacological activity. Inhalation studies across three countries showed it decreases heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and respiratory rate in humans — shifting the autonomic nervous system toward parasympathetic dominance. In rats, it prolongs pentobarbital-induced sleep. The mechanism appears to bypass olfactory pathways entirely, operating through lower-airway absorption.
Inhaling cedrol vapour lowers heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate in humans — an effect documented across test subjects in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. The sedative mechanism bypasses the olfactory system entirely: studies on laryngectomised patients (who cannot smell) showed the same autonomic shift when cedrol reached the lungs directly, suggesting absorption through alveolar tissue rather than scent perception.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Cedrol is isolated from crude cedarwood oil (Juniperus virginiana or Cupressus funebris) by fractional crystallisation. The crude oil is cooled; cedrol, having a higher melting point than the liquid terpene hydrocarbons, precipitates as white crystalline plates. The crystals are filtered, washed with cold solvent, and recrystallised to achieve purity above 98% (documented yield: ~79% recovery at 98% purity from the cedrol-rich fraction). Solvent extraction of the raw wood yields oil with a higher cedrol proportion (~40%) compared to conventional steam distillation (~28–30%), making it the preferred upstream method when cedrol isolation is the goal. Supercritical CO2 extraction at low temperature (25 C, 1500 psi) maximises the cedrol-to-cedrene ratio in the resulting oil.
Molecular Formula
C15H26O
CAS Number
77-53-2
Botanical Name
Found in Juniperus virginiana (Virginia cedarwood), Cupressus funebris (Chinese cedarwood)
Cedrol is a fixative and base-note volume builder, not a character note. Its near-odourlessness is the point: it anchors woody accords without imposing its own identity, extending the lifespan of more volatile cedar, vetiver, and patchouli components above it. It is a structural necessity in chypre and fougère bases, where it provides the woody floor beneath bergamot, oakmoss, and coumarin. In amber compositions, it steadies the balsamic-resinous heart. In transparent woody-musks, it adds body without heaviness. Cedrol serves as the chemical precursor to cedryl acetate (CAS 77-54-3), which offers a softer, more diffusive woody-amber effect, and to Cedramber (cedrol methyl ether, CAS 19870-74-7), which shifts the profile toward dry ambergris. Both derivatives are workhorses in functional and fine perfumery.
