Ingredients · Spices · heart note

Cubeb oil

Say itKYOO-beb oil

Woody-peppery with camphoraceous, slightly minty-spicy freshness.

What it is

Natural oil from unripe berries of Piper cubeba.

Where it comes from

Java, Indonesia

When you smell it

Heart: as it settles.

What perfumers do with it

Adds dry woody-pepper texture to masculine, woody and spicy accords.

Worth knowing

Medieval Europe prized cubeb as spice and medicine; nineteenth-century pharmacies sold cubeb cigarettes for asthma.

Also called

Tailed pepper; Piper cubeba