Intensely green, sharp and bitter — like crushed unripe stems and sap, with an almost metallic edge. Underneath sits an earthy, resinous balsamic tone that lingers into a warmer, slightly woody drydown. A tiny amount reads as vivid raw greenery; more becomes pungent and vegetal.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin, page 170.
Soft Galbanum is a dark amber-colored to yellowish-brown or grayish-green, olive-brown, very viscous liquid whose consistency is like fresh honey. It is usually contaminated with wood splinters, sand, gravel, plant fibres, insects, etc., and it will separate a “foot” of a grayish mass on the bottom of its container.
The odor of crude galbanum (soft type) is powerful, green-woody, almost balsamic-resinous, reminiscent of oleoresins from conifers. The leafy-earthy, green note is often referred to in terms, such as: “like green peppers” or “tossed green salad”, etc. There is a distinct resemblance to the odor of hyacinth leaves.
Soft Galbanum or Levant Galbanum is collected in very large quantities, and tens of tons are used by the perfume industry, in contradiction to various statements that “galbanum is used to a limited extent in certain perfume types”. It is true that its application is limited to a comparatively small number of perfume types, but some of these types are very common in use. The Soft Galbanum also serves as a starting material for the distillation of Galbanum Oil which is abundantly present in this type of galbanum.
Being an exudation of a physiological (naturally formed) product, Galbanum does not require much work beyond its actual collection. It is conceivable that the perfumery type of galbanum is mainly derived from those species of Ferula in which the exudation appears at the umbel itself. This exudation contains more essential oil, and is softer than the exudations from stalks, etc. from other species of Ferula.