Review: Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris

By Anton Constantinou

Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris is a book about one of perfume’s most exciting ingredients - ambergris. A magical substance with a distinctive look and smell that’s captivated for centuries yet remains a mystery.

A strange secretion produced only by sperm whales, ambergris is one of those perculiar natural occurrences that many have heard of yet few can explain. A prized substance of mysterious origins, today recognised as one of perfume’s most expensive raw materials.

Written by Christopher Kemp, a Molecular Biologist with a deep interest in all things ambergris, Floating Gold deep dives into the subject and presents a fascinating story on it. A tale of obsession, secrecy and conquest, where different worlds collide and different groups vye for its possession.

Set for quite a bit of the book in New Zealand - a main centre for ambergris discovery - Floating Gold follows Kemp’s pursuit of the stuff and the people he meets along the way. A journey that takes us from the wild beaches of New Zealand (where major discoveries of ambergris have been made down the years), to luxury hotel rooms in Asia (where ambergris is purchased virtually, on the sly).

In bringing to life ambergris and the world it inhabits, Floating Gold provides lively accounts of both the whaling industry and the fragrance industry, and a looking glass into ocean ecology - the study of ocean life and its interaction with its environment.

For a book that I stumbled on by pure chance, it hasn’t half taught me some interesting things, like why ambergris looks the way it does and how it makes its way from whale to lab. Even then, the book doesn’t profess to have all the answers - such is the mystery of ambergris.

If, like me, you’re curious about ambergris and would like to know more about it, give Floating Gold a read. It might just inspire you to go hunting for the stuff.