Search for ambroxan and you will find two products that share a name and a CAS number but are not the same thing to buy. One is the pure material: white crystals, sold by the gram. The other is a solution, usually 10% ambroxan in a solvent such as DPG, sold by the millilitre. This guide explains what each one is, how to tell them apart on a listing, why the prices sit so far apart, and which one suits the work you do.
Two products, one name
Ambroxan is a single molecule, ambroxide, first made to reproduce the warm, salty, skin-like smell of ambergris. Chemists list it under CAS 6790-58-5, and it is sold under several trade names: Ambrox, Ambroxide, Ambrofix and Ambrox Super among them. However it is labelled, the smell is the same. What varies is the form.
- Crystals: the neat material as it leaves the factory: a white crystalline powder with nothing added. Every gram is a gram of ambroxan.
- Liquid: the same crystals already dissolved in a carrier. The usual strength is 10%, so a 10ml bottle holds about 1g of ambroxan and 9g of solvent, typically DPG, sometimes ethanol or IPM. Some sellers offer 20% or 50%, and some do not say.
Our Ambroxan is the crystals: pure, undiluted, and sold by weight from 30g up to 20kg.
How to tell which one a listing is
Sellers are not always clear, so read for these signs.
- Grams or millilitres: crystals are weighed, so a listing in g or kg is almost always the neat material. A listing in ml is a liquid, and a liquid is a dilution.
- A percentage or a solvent in the name: "Ambroxan 10%", "in DPG" or "solution" all mean diluted. If a liquid listing gives no strength, ask before buying, because 10% and 50% are very different products at the same price.
- The photo: white powder or flakes in a jar is the neat material. A clear liquid in a dropper bottle is a solution.
- The CAS number will not help: both forms carry 6790-58-5, because the number describes the molecule, not what is in the bottle.
Why the crystals cost more per gram, and less per gram of ambroxan
Put the two side by side and the crystals look expensive: a 30g jar against a 30ml bottle. But the bottle is nine-tenths solvent. Thirty grams of crystals hold the ambroxan of 300g of a 10% solution, which is ten of those bottles, not one. Dilute it yourself and the same money goes ten times further, and you decide the solvent and the strength instead of taking whatever the seller chose.
Crystals also keep. Neat ambroxan is a stable solid that does not evaporate or break down in the jar, so a large size can be bought once and drawn down over years. A solution is only as stable as its solvent, and a half-empty bottle of a DPG dilution can cloud or drop crystals as it ages and cools.
Making your own 10% solution
This is the step that puts people off the crystals, and it takes ten minutes.
- Weigh 1g of crystals into a clean glass bottle. A scale that reads to 0.01g is enough.
- Add 9g of solvent. DPG is the usual choice for perfume oils and attars, perfumer's alcohol for sprays, and IPM where you want a thinner result.
- Cap the bottle, stand it in a bowl of hot tap water for a few minutes, then shake. Repeat until no powder is left. Ambroxan melts at about 75 °C, but you never need it that hot: warm solvent and patience dissolve it.
- Label it with the material, the strength, the solvent and the date.
If a DPG solution goes cloudy or throws crystals on a cold day, it has not spoiled. Warm it and shake again and it clears. Keep solutions capped tightly, and make only what you will use within a few months.
How much to use
At around 1% of a concentrate, ambroxan is a fixative you barely notice: it slows the evaporation of the lighter notes so the perfume keeps its shape for longer on skin. At 3 to 5% it starts to warm and round out the base. Well above that it becomes the smell of the perfume, the warm amber note that anchors a great many modern fragrances. Those figures are for the neat material. A 10% solution is used at ten times the amount, so 1% of ambroxan means 10% of solution.
Weigh it rather than counting drops, and let a blend rest for at least a week before judging it, because ambroxan takes time to settle. Our guide to perfume fixatives covers Iso E Super, Galaxolide and Hedione in the same way.
When the liquid is the better buy
The crystals are the better buy for anyone who owns a scale and makes perfume more than once. The liquid is the better buy when you do not: for a first experiment, or when you want to add a few drops to a small blend and move on. It is the same molecule, and the only thing you pay for is someone else doing the dissolving.
Two things to check before you buy a liquid: the strength, and the solvent, because the solvent ends up in your perfume too. DPG suits oils and attars, ethanol suits sprays. If the listing says neither, the seller may not know.
What we sell
We stock ambroxan as the pure crystals only, from a 30g trial size to 20kg, with DPG to dilute it and the rest of our perfume raw materials alongside. Orders ship across the UAE in 1 to 3 working days. If you are not sure which form you need, message us on WhatsApp and we will tell you, even when a small bottle of solution would serve you better than a jar of crystals.