The Gold of The Sea Beauty Collection including the Modified Chypre Variant

The Gold of the Sea is an exotic blend of rare and exclusive organic essential oils along with ambergris tincture. The mixture is suspended in different mediums to produce a beautiful collection represented by soap, perfume, body lotion and rejuvenating body oil. The formula has carefully selected top notes represented by lemon and pink grapefruit, the middle floral notes are rose, jasmine sambac, and Ylang Ylang while there are a number of base notes represented by Siam wood, labdanum, clove, cinnamon, amber resin, ambergris and sandalwood. The end result is a sweet warm resinous floral and citrus scent; the essential oils themselves have many magical properties including those that fall in the antiaging and rejuvenating categories while exhibiting a profound olfactory appeal that has defined an alluring fragrant base for the skin over millennia.

The ambergris used in this exclusive formulation is one of the most costly of ingredients and is rarely offered in its natural form in perfumery. A synthetic version of ambergris — namely ambroxan — is usually implemented in current perfume blends. Other synthetic molecules that emulate to some extent the smell of ambergris include Iso E Super® and Timbersilk. However, true Ambergris offered as an absolute tincture is exceedingly rare.

Ambergris Origins

Ambergris is a very valuable and unusual byproduct excreted by the sperm whale. The whale ambergris that washes to the ocean shore has a grey to blackish quality and in fact its name reflects the color. It is expelled from gastrointestinal tract. It acquires its distinctive smell with time over many years; some specimens that are collected are hundreds of years old if not over a thousand years old. The material is truly one of nature’s great wonders. It is virtually impossible to see the actual expulsion of the material from the whale so the exact origin of it remains a mystery and its age is equally elusive except that it is very old. The material is formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the sperm whale, and can be found floating on the sea or washed up on coastlines. The beaks of giant squids have been discovered within lumps of ambergris. In this regard it is thought to represent a mixture of bile duct secretions, the undigested fish and squid parts and likely portions of intestinal mucosa that have been injured by the hardened integuments of these ingested sea creatures.

Ambergris could be expelled through the lower intestinal tract. Conversely, others speculate that an ambergris mass too large to be passed through the intestines is expelled via the mouth, but this remains under debate. Ambergris takes years to form. The exact origin of the ambergris and the years that pass prior to its discovery on the ocean coast is not precisely known. Suffice it to say that ambergris is an exceptionally rare product.

While the pulverized ambergris has a grey appearance it develops a deep brownish, black and reddish hue after it has macerated for a period of time in alcohol; it begins to acquire the distinctive deep color shortly after being placed in alcohol. The tinctures used in the Collesta preparations are composed of 10% top grade ambergris and lychee alcohol.

The fatty precursor of ambergris is pale white and has an unpleasant smell. Following months to years of degradation by the sun and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black color, a waxy texture, and a sweet, earthy, marine, and animalic odor. In fact, the smell is reminiscent of amber resin.

The ambergris used in the Gold of the Sea is top grade ambergris that has been pulverized and incubated in lychee alcohol for at least 6 months. Unlike the synthetic counterparts, the smell is very delicate and sweet.

Ambergris, which is considered a coprolith originating from the sperm whale, is found as jetsam on beaches all over the world. There are no reliable data indicating how long such samples may have remained at sea, with unsubstantiated accounts suggesting that some species are up to a thousand years old.

Ambergris Chemistry

The major constituent of ambergris is ambrein and steroids. Onoceroids are a rare family of triterpenes. One representative onoceroid is ambrein. Ambrein is a primary constituent of ambergris. Surprisingly, ambrein is structurally like vitamin D. Scientists have shown the Vitamin D receptor binding ability of ambrein. Ambrein in turn undergoes oxidative degradation to produce ambroxide which is the key ingredient that produces the distinctive sweet and musky smell of ambergris. Both ambrein and ambroxide can be chemically synthesized. However, the Gold of the Sea oil mixture used in the perfume, soap, oil and body lotion is derived from true ambergris. The ambrein biosynthesis pathway has been successfully constructed in model microorganisms, leading to de novo biosynthesis of ambrein from glucose and glycerol. Alternative sources of ambrein are not used in the Gold of the Sea Collection.

Chypre Gold of the Sea

Chypre Gold of the Sea has certain similarities with the original Gold of the Sea but it has the basic chypre accord composed of natural labdanum, patchouli, bergamot, and oakmoss. There is ambergris and a natural amber resin along with rare florals including jasmine, rose, pink lotus, orange blossom and styrax and a small percentage of synthetic molecules that does not represent more than 2.5% of the mixture. The molecules are Iso E Super®, Hedione and Timbersilk.

The origin of the chypre accord dates back to the turn of the twentieth century when François Coty introduced Chypre de Coty. He brilliantly established the chypre accord using patchouli, labdanum, and oakmoss. One can take the accord and modify it to produce variants of the basic chypre. For example, this variant of the Chypre would be an amber resinous and floral chypre. It is offered in the same packaging and can be made into the perfume, body cream, soap and body oil.