What is ambergris, the sperm whale concretion?

“Floating gold”: that is the name given for centuries to ambergris, the strange and precious substance sometimes found washed up on beaches or drifting in the open sea. Currently sold for up to 20,000 dollars per kilogram on the legal market, it has fed curiosity, greed and mystery for thousands of years. But what exactly is it? A precious stone? A resin? The answer is more surprising: it is an intestinal concretion of the sperm whale.

An intestinal concretion of the sperm whale

Ambergris is produced exclusively by the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) and by it alone. Neither the other toothed whales nor the baleen whales produce any. Its formation is directly linked to the sperm whale’s very particular diet, which consists mainly of cephalopods.

Squid and octopus have an extremely hard and sharp chitinous beak, indigestible to mammal stomachs. When the sperm whale swallows its prey, it therefore also takes in these horny beaks. To protect its intestines from the injuries these sharp fragments could cause, the sperm whale’s digestive system secretes a cholesterol-rich substance that gradually coats the accumulated beaks. This mass grows over time, forming a concretion that is eventually expelled, either through the normal digestive route (most often) or, far more rarely, by regurgitation. Hence the less glamorous nickname of “sperm whale vomit”, which is technically accurate only in a minority of cases.

A spectacular transformation

Fresh ambergris, just expelled, is nothing precious. It appears as a blackish, soft and foul-smelling mass with a strong faecal odour. At that stage no one would give it a second look on a beach.

Its transformation over time is extraordinary. Once expelled into the ocean, the concretion floats (its density is lower than that of seawater). For years, sometimes decades, it drifts with the currents, undergoing the combined action of oxidation in air, UV radiation, sea salt and mechanical erosion. Its colour gradually lightens (from black to brown and then to grey), its consistency hardens (becoming waxy, comparable to beeswax) and, above all, its smell changes radically.

A “mature” piece of ambergris, after years at sea, gives off a complex and unique scent: marine, animal, slightly sweet, deeply musky. It is this smell, an exceptional fixative, that made it one of the most sought-after ingredients in luxury perfumery for centuries.

A use going back thousands of years

The use of ambergris goes back to antiquity. The Egyptians burned it as incense. The Arabs made it a medicinal and aphrodisiac ingredient. Merchants on the medieval trade routes brought it to Europe, where it became a luxury ingredient in royal perfumes, but also in elixirs and ceremonial foods. In the 17^th century it was added to the hot chocolate of the European courts.

In perfumery its main role is that of a fixative: it extends how long the scents last on the skin and gives them a characteristic roundness. The great perfumes of Chanel, Guerlain and Dior long used natural ambergris. Today most perfume houses use synthetic substitutes (Ambroxan, Cetalox), which imitate its olfactory qualities without depending on the sperm whale. Natural ambergris nonetheless keeps a mythical aura among traditional perfumers.

Legal status: a contested product

The legal status of ambergris varies from country to country. In most EU countries, its sale is prohibited because it comes from a protected species (the sperm whale, listed in Appendix I of CITES). On the other hand, a chance find on a beach is generally not unlawful, since ambergris is expelled naturally by the sperm whale, without harm to the animal.

In the United States, by contrast, possession and sale have been strictly prohibited since 1972 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In the United Kingdom, Australia and France the situation is more permissive: collecting on the beach is tolerated, provided there is no hunting or exploitation of the animal. Legal confusion nevertheless remains common, and it is better to check carefully before selling a sample.

How to recognise a genuine piece of ambergris

Identification is tricky: many objects washed up on beaches (stranded whale blubber, animal tallow, cargo residues) look like ambergris. The authentication criteria combine a waxy appearance, a grey to brown colour, the visible presence of embedded squid beaks, buoyancy in seawater and, above all, a heat test: touched with a red-hot needle, genuine ambergris immediately gives off a characteristic scent and melts into a white oil.

The ambergris market remains opaque, at times clandestine, and certified appraisals are rare. For the sperm whale, at any rate, this odd concretion is simply a digestive by-product. For humans it has become, over the centuries, one of the most mysterious and precious raw materials of the perfumer’s art.

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