Fragrances today are mostly a fusion of ingredients taken from nature – or inspired by nature – together with the synthetics (man-made ingredients) that are used to make them last longer, ‘carry further’, or stay ‘true’, when worn on the skin.
Here, you can read about literally hundreds of the different perfume elements in use today. If you know which ingredient you want to read about, you can either input the name into our ‘search’ box (top right). Or click on a letter of the alphabet below – and it’ll take you to a collage of all the ingredients that start with that letter. Alternatively, let your eye travel over the scrolling, rolling collage below – and click on whatever takes your fancy: a visual ‘lucky dip’…
Cherry
So juicy, you can almost imagine this running down your chin: sweet, slightly tart, and of late cherry’s become Miss Popularity in the perfume stakes, with the rise in pretty, girly fruity-florals. (See also cherry blossom, a floral note.) In general, what you smell is a synthetic or ‘fantasy’ ingredient rather than the scent of punnets-ful of squeezed red fruits.
Smell cherry in:
Goutal Quel Amour!
Cartier Délices de Cartier
Dior Miss Dior Chérie
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire
Dahlia
One thing’s for sure: dahlias don’t smell as blowsy as they look. It’s the leaves and the stems which are used in fragrance, giving a slightly bitter note. Originating from Mexico, Central America and Columbia, and then hybridised by clever Dutch plant breeders, dozens of species of tuberous dahlia now brighten our summer gardens. (They’re deeply alluring to slugs, as gardeners know.) The dahlia fragrances on the market, we’ve a hunch, are inspired by the show-stopping appearance of this flower, rather than its scent: it’s not about to take over from jasmine and rose in the perfumer’s arsenal, anytime soon.
Smell dahlia in:
Givenchy Dahlia Noir
Sage
‘The sacred herb;’, the Romans called it – and pretty sacred sage is, too, to perfumers. More often used in masculine perfumery, an essential oil of sage – which is steam-distilled from the leaves - does add pep (and pepperiness), freshness and zing to some women’s scents – even though you’ll probably be unaware of its eucalyptus-like undertones. This well-known shrubby perennial garden herb, Salvia officinialis, was used to ward off evil in ancient times. It also cured snakebite, increased fertility – and was a cornerstone of ‘Four Thieves Vinegar’, a blend of herbs alleged to ward off the plague. All that, and a wonderful aromatic smell, too…
Smell sage in:
Goutal Mandragore
Byredo Green
Dior Dune
Floris China Rose
Guerlain Eau de Lit
Miller Harris Feuilles de Tabac
Dyer’s greenweed
The clue’s in the name: this plant’s more widely used to dye clothing. (It’s also used in folk medicine.) With golden yellow pea-like flowers, the short, bushy shrub Genista tinctoria (which is a member of the broom family) flourishes in dry uplands, in the US. What does it smell of, in a fragrance? It’s dry, cool and bracken-like, adding a green feel to a scent.
Smell dyer’s greenweed in:
Boucheron Trouble
Raspberry
Cranberries and blackberries have similar aroma chemicals, but mostly, perfumers turn to one of two synthetics to recreate raspberry-ness: ‘frambonine’ or ‘raspberry ketone’ (which can also be used as a raspberry flavouring).
Most of us know and love the fruit of the plant – which is a member of the rose family, and is grown all over the world – but just occasionally, the scent of its lightly woody-floral blossom makes an appearance in a perfume construction, too.
'The natural extract is tooth-shaking sweet, seemingly (of course, it isn´t in reality),' explains perfumer Andy Tauer, 'and smells like a raspberry under LSD influence. (I miss any experience there, but I imagine what it might be like!) In my perfumery work, I use synthetics for raspberry chords, too. Let´s call them "raspberry coupé". They're like berry clay that you can form and shape in all directions.'
He continues: 'I do not use that many fruit chords in my creations, but raspberry is just perfect with roses. And jasmine. I sometimes wonder why the combination of fruits and berries with flowers are so enchanting. Maybe it is because it brings together the ethereal pleasure of scent and the down-to-earth joy of pampering our body with food. One fine day I will buy a few kilos of real raspberry extract, though, and make my ultimate fruity Tauer.'
Smell raspberry in:
Guerlain Insolence
Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau So Fresh
Marc Jacobs Oh Lola!
Paco Rabanne Lady Million
Wormwood
With the current frenzy for exotic cocktails, chances are you may tasted wormwood (Artemisia absinthum) – the key ingredient in absinthe, a drink that was for years banned in France but is now very much in vogue. (It’s also used in vermouth.) As a medicinal, use of this exceedingly bitter herb goes all the way back to Egypt. (It helps to dispel parasites – hence its name…) In fragrances, wormwood is also bitter and green – and so used with the lightest touch, generally (in men’s but also women’s scents), because it’s pungent and intensely herby. (See also Artemisia).
Smell wormwood in:
Amouage Memoir Woman
Histoire de Parfums 1889 Moulin Rouge
Frangipani
Exquisitely exotic, heady, tropical: frangipani is sultry hot nights – and sexy, sexy, sexy. Frangipani isn’t actually the name of a plant, though: it’s an ingredient from plumeira flowers, which have a gardenia-like scent: soft, peachy, creamy, fruity. And did we say sexy…? It pumps out its fragrance at night, to attract insects. (And seems to work equally well on members of the opposite sex.) Perhaps unsurprisingly, frangipani pairs well with ingredients from tropical fruits, and coconut.
There’s an intriguing back story to the naming of this plant, meanwhile. Once upon a time, frangipani was the name of an actual perfume – produced by an aristocratic Roman Renaissance family by the name of Frangipani, and created by mixing orris (iris root), spices, civet and musk. (Those last two are outlawed in modern perfumery, of course.) Wine was added to those ingredients to make a long-lasting perfume, which was also used to scent gloves – known as ‘Frangipani gloves’.
When a French colonist later came upon a plant in the West Indies that smelled just like that perfume – the Plumeira alba plant – he named it ‘frangipani’. Which is definitely the only instance of a plant getting its name from an actual fragrance: it’s far more usually the other way round…
Smell frangipani in:
Kenzo Kenzo Amour Florale
Amber
There’s a fog of confusion about amber, and ambergris. Both give a snuggly, cosy-sexy feel to fragrances – but amber is a ‘fantasy’ (synthetic note), and ambergris is a whale by-product (NB no whales are harmed in its production, which is a completely fascinating process).
Even more confusingly, the perfume ingredient doesn’t even come from amber itself – that time-hardened resin of Pinus succinifera, which is often shaped into jewellery. Instead, it’s the name given to a simple fragrance accord of labdanum, benzoin and vanilla – and/or, sometimes, touches of tonka and Peru balsam, which also have a sweet, resinous quality. ‘Amber’ as a perfume ingredient first made its debut in the late 1800s, with the invention of synthetic vanilla (vanillin); nowadays, it’s so widely used in ambrée-style perfumes that it’s given rise to a whole category (Amber ambrée).
It has an animalic quality, and is warm, a little powdery – and decidedly erotic. One of those ‘light-the-blue-touch-paper-and-retire’ perfume ingredients, this. As perfumer Alienor Massenet explains, 'Amber notes are warm, and can evoke liquor. But above all, they give depth and sexiness to a fragrance…'
Smell amber in:
Shay & Blue Amber Rose
Mango
Succulent, juicy, drippingly sweet: mango works wonderfully in summer perfumes in particular, delivering that hint-of-the-tropics perfumers seek to capture in a bottle. With its hints of plum and peach, and a touch of lush green, mango’s often to be found alongside floral notes in the fruity-floral compositions which have become so popular in recent years.
Many of us have enjoyed mango on holiday (though they’re rarely so perfectly succulent when they’ve been transported half-way across the world). But did you know that this stone-fruit is related to the cashew family…? Mangifera indica originates in the Indian subcontinent, where it’s prized for its spiritual significance (and even now, it’s celebrated as the ‘royal fruit’); today, there are over 1,000 species in the world.
Mango blossom, too, is sometimes used in perfumery: as sweetly floral as you’d imagine these soft white flowers to be, with a breath of lily of the valley about them.
Smell mango in:
Iso E Super
Chemicals like Iso E Super (a bit of a tongue-twister, we’ll grant you) are important tools in a modern perfumer’s kit: perfumer Francis Kurkdjian told us it was ‘torture’ for him to create a scent for a recent Paris exhibition, without ingredients like this at his fingertips, to turbo-charge the staying power or help ‘fill a room’. (Many naturals are positively timid on the skin.)
International Flavors & Fragrances, who trademarked Iso E Super, describe it as a ‘smooth, woody, amber note, with a “velvet-like” sensation. Superb floraliser. Used to impart fullness and subtle strength to fragrances.’ On its own, though, it’s sometimes considered almost ‘non-existent’ – which just goes to demonstrate perfume’s magical alchemy, and what happens when different ingredients are blended together. Iso E Super’s said to help ‘personalise’ fragrances, creating an almost bespoke effect when they’re applied to the wearer’s skin. It goes especially well with musks, fruits and flowers.
Iso E Super is very popular in fragrance compositions, even though the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) has rationed its use in a formula, because of its potentially sensitising/allergenic effects. And in just one instance – Escentric Molecules Molecule 01, created by daring contemporary perfumer Geza Schoen – it’s been made the star of the show. Why not sniff that out, and let your nostrils decide what they think of Iso E Super…?
Smell Iso E Super in:
Escentric Molecules Molecule 01
Salt
Salt’s a flavour. So how can it work, in a perfume…? A ‘fantasy’ note of salt can be used to add tang to marine, woody or even gourmand fragrances. In the same way that a touch of salt brings a caramel alive, saltiness can play against sweet notes like chocolate, praline and cream, as an almost show-stopping contrast. Fragrances with high levels of ambergris (natural or synthetic) can also smell ‘salty’.
Smell salt in:
Creed Impériale Millesime
Miller Harris Fleur de Sel
Dill
Sprinkle it on your smoked salmon. Chew on it to combat wind. Or enjoy it as a delicate, slightly spicy herbaceous note, in fragrances. (Mostly men’s, but a few shared and women’s scents; it goes really well with other aromatics, such as fennel, licorice, tarragon, basil and fennel, in aromatic and ambrée creations.) Botanically, dill’s known as Anethum graveolens, and originates from the Med, and southern Russia.
Smell dill in:
Marc Jacobs Bang Bang
Celery
In recent years, perfumers have been giving thanks for celery. The crunchy bits we like to eat aren’t much use to perfumers – but the earthily-scented oil harvested from the seed is: restricted from using oakmoss in its natural form, because of sensitisation issues, celery seed oil actually comes pretty close. In fact, it’s what Guerlain’s in-house nose Thierry Wasser used to ‘plug’ a hole in a new, ‘fractionated’ oakmoss note, to make it smell just like the original – and so, return the legendary Mitsouko to its former glory. It also blends beautifully with sweet pea and with tuberose.
Smell celery in:
Guerlain Mitsouko
Sweet pea
Many a gardener’s favourite flower, the sweet pea: obligingly abundant, so long as you keep picking its long stems day after day. It’s certainly possible to capture the airy sweetness of sweet peas, or Lathyrus odoratus – which naturally smell somewhere between orange blossom and hyacinth, with a hint of rose – through a process of extraction. But the ingredient perfumers weave, mostly into floral fragrances, is generally a synthetic replica.
Smell sweet pea in:
Issey Miyake Pleats Please
Miller Harris Couer de Fleur
Photograph courtesy of Sarah Raven
Hemlock
You wouldn’t love the smell of hemlock if you got up-close-and-personal – and you’d be unwise to do that, as it’s a seriously poisonous plant: in Ancient Greece, hemlock was the poison used to execute prisoners (including the renowned philosopher Socrates).
Crush the leaves of this frothily-flowered plant, and they smell fetid, rotting – rank, basically. But as with many ‘unlikely’ perfume ingredients, add it in the teensiest dose, and hemlock can add depth and intrigue. (And in similarly teeny does, it’s also been used in medicine as a sedative…)
Smell hemlock in::
Elecampane
The roots of this plant – also known as horse-heal (and officially Inula helenium) – can be distilled to produce an essential oil, with a minty, violet-like scent. (Over the centuries, it’s also been valued as a medicinal and was actually recommended by the famous herbalist John Gerard; elecampane has been prescribed for shortness of breath and water retention.) The dried roots also make their way into pot pourri.
Hawthorn
When hawthorn blooms, you know spring’s here. ‘Queen of the May’, or ‘the faerie tree’, as this ancient, often gnarly tree is also known as, looks thornily off-putting throughout the winter - but then: ker-pow…! As May swings round, the Crataegus monogyna tree bursts into a froth of sweet-scented blooms, which have long been symbolically linked in the Pagan tradition with fertility and sexual abandonment. (For the Romans, hawthorn was a symbol of marriage. To the Greeks, it spelled good fortune.) Walk past a hedgerow in full blossom and you’ll breathe the spicy, almond-like scent of the flowers which has been prized for centuries by perfumers. But in modern perfume creation, hawthorn’s recreated synthetically - adding freshness and a sparkle to several well-known and a raft of gorgeous niche creations.
Smell hawthorn in:
Chanel Les Exclusifs de Chanel Beige
Kenzo Flower by Kenzo
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Petit Matin
Parle Moi de Parfum Totally White
Penhaligon's Ostara
Penhaligon's Blasted Bloom
The Merchant of Venice La Fenice Pour Femme
Valentino Donna Acqua
YSL Paris
Gardenia
It takes around three to four thousand kilos of gardenia flowers to produce a kilo of ‘concrete’ (solid perfume) from gardenia plants – so not surprisingly, this heady white flower is one of the priciest ingredients in a perfumer’s arsenal. Not surprisingly, a synthetic version’s often used. Alternatively, perfumers can mix other white flowers to create a gardenia-esque effect – tuberose, jasmine and orange blossom do the trick.
Gardenia gets its name from the US botanist Dr. Alexander Garden, and grows naturally in the Far East, India and China. (Closer to home, this shiny-leafed exotic can often be found on sale as a potted plant in garden centres and some natural food stores: one single open flower can perfume a room, it’s so heady and lush.)
Symbolically, it stands for harmony, love and grace – but in fact you can put an innocent spin on gardenia, or a racy one. The jazz chanteuse Billie Holliday would tuck a gardenia blossom behind her ear before performing. 19th Century courtesans in Shanghai used it to dye their underwear a vibrant yellow. In the Victorians’ language of flowers, gardenia stood for refinement and purity.
Only sultry, opulent perfumes need apply, though…
Smell gardenia in:
Frankincense
The Three Kings famously presented frankincense as one of the gifts to Baby Jesus: THAT’s how far back frankincense goes. (The other gifts were of course myrrh – another fragrance ingredient – and gold.)
Also known as olibanum, frankincense is actually a resin from the Boswellia sacra tree, which grows in the Dhofar area of Oman, as well as Yemen. (There are also forests of it in northern Ethiopia – although ecologists report that production of this resin could decline by half, over the next 15 years, as those forests are systematically cut down to make way for agriculture.)
Once exclusively reserved for kings and queens, frankincense has been used in religious ceremonies, burial rituals and for embalming – including for mummification. (It clearly has extraordinary preservative powers, able to preserve skin for millennia.) It’s burned today in Catholic churches and Anglican high church ceremonies – and perhaps as a result, it’s a love-it-or-hate-it ingredient, depending on whether you were forced to sit through endless sermons and hymns on Sundays.
Frankincense is incredibly powerful as an ingredient – so it’s only generally used in teensy doses (except in perfumes designed to conjure up the smell of actual incense). But it also works brilliantly as a fixative: around 13% of all perfumes apparently contain at least a trace of frankincense.
Smell frankincense in:
Chanel Coco Noir
Guerlain Chant D’Arome
Christian Dior Bois d'Argent
Amouage Interlude
Pelagornium
For many of us, geranium has an incredibly nostalgic scent: the scent of a grandmother’s greenhouse, rubbing a furry-leaved plant between our fingertips. In fact, there are hundreds of species of geranium, with scents that conjure up many other plants: lemon, apple, lime, mint, orange, rose, citronella, camphor, pineapple, sage and more. The leaves and stems can be steam-distilled to produce oils, then, with quite different characters – depending on the variety.
Mostly, the type used in perfumery is Pelargonium graveolens, or rose geranium: it gives a scent that’s similar to rose, but with a lemony twist, and less of the powderiness. The most prized geranium of all comes from the Ile Bourbon, with its rich, green, fruity-mint rosiness. (Such complexity, in a single ingredient: no wonder many perfumers love it.) But it’s also grown in Algiers, Morocco – and in Grasse, we saw Chanel experimenting with growing geranium in their fields. Geranium’s used in colognes, herbal scents, florals and chypre fragrances. (Plus the fougère family, which is mostly men’s scents.)
Legend has it that geraniums first grew where the prophet Mohammed hung his shirt to dry in the sun. And there are other myths linked with geranium: they’re said to grow in pots near witches’ cottages. (Which probably pegs most British gardeners as witches, then.)
Smell Pelargornium in:
Frederic Malle Noir Epices
Bacon
Bacon…? In a fragrance…? Yes, really: this salty, smoky breakfast food has been used in synthetic form as a ‘novel’ (very novel) perfume ingredient in John Leydon’s Fargginay fragrance brand, in a specific bacōn collection. Nowadays, perfumers have to work ever-harder to create a point of difference. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sniff out a bacon fragrance for yourself, and make up your own mind…!
Smell bacon in:
Mignonette
‘Little darling’. Who can resist a perfume ingredient with a name like that…? And who can resist the smell, either: soft, sweet and violet-like, and a touch fruity…?
Mignonette – also known as Reseda odorata – originates in Northern Africa, but is cultivated commercially in the south of France to produce a delectably-scented essential oil, using solvents or a ‘maceration’ technique. The name comes from the Latin: ‘resedo’ means ‘to heal’, and the Romans used it as a charm against ailments. It would be nice to think that spritzing on a scent featuring this delicious, little-known ingredient worked the same way.
Smell mignonette in:
Clive Christian X for Women
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio
Vanilla
Vanilla doesn’t just smell sweet, nuzzleable and delectably comforting: it’s kind of magic, in flavour and perfume terms. When we smell or taste anything, our ‘receptors’ constantly wipe those fleeting encounters to prepare for the next flavour or a smell. But when vanilla is added to food or fragrance, naturally-present vanillin (and other vanilloids, which we’ll talk about in a moment) work to ‘hold open’ our vanilloid receptors, slowing down this wiping process – which in turn gives us more time to perceive, experience and enjoy both scents and flavours. (Vanilloids are also found in cocoa, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and hot peppers – which partly explains why they’re all such ‘taste sensations’.)
Vanilla comes from the seeds of a dried pod from a climbing orchid-like plant which flourishes especially well in Madagascar; the very best quality of vanilla comes from the Île Bourbon, now known as Réunion. It gets its name from the Spanish word ‘vaina’ (meaning sheath or pod, and translates simply as ‘little pod’. (Strangely, the flower itself is scent-less.)
Perhaps because vanilla is the second priciest spice in the world, after saffron, the vanilla you smell in many perfumes today is synthetic vanillin: clever chemists have worked to mimic the real thing – although the most gifted noses will probably tell you that real vanilla is earthier, with touches of treacle and a touch of ‘booziness’.
We love this legend about vanilla which we found on the excellent Perfume Shrine blog. ‘According to the Australian Orchid Society, "Old Totonac lore has it that Xanat, the young daughter of the Mexican fertility goddess, loved a Totonac youth. Unable to marry him due to her divine nature, she transformed herself into a plant that would provide pleasure and happiness – that plant was the Vanilla vine. This reputation was much enhanced in 1762 when a German study found that a medication based on vanilla extract cured impotence — all 342 smiling subjects claimed they were cured.”’
Vanilla’s reputation as a powerful aphrodisiac endures, and it’s often present in ‘sexy’, come-hither fragrances, especially Ambrées and gourmand fragrances, as well as ‘girly’, ‘younger’ creations. And it’s probably one of the most easily-recognised perfume ingredients of all…
Smell vanilla in:
Dior Addict
Dior Hypnotic Poison
Guerlain Shalimar
Guerlain Spirituelle Double Vanille
L’Aritsan Parfumeur Vanille Absolument
Read The Perfume Candy Boy's Guide to Vanilla, here
Strawberry
In the wrong hands, strawberry can smell sickly-sweet and synthetic. But in the hands of a gifted perfumer…? Strawberry can be lush, juicy, fruity-green and not overpoweringly ‘jammy’, at all. One of summer’s favourite berries, strawberry’s turned up in a fruitbowl of scents in recent years, riding on a wave of fruity-floral popularity – sometimes paired with exotic white flowers like ylang-ylang, lily or jasmine, or in ‘gourmand’ creations alongside caramel and cinnamon. If you’ve been put off by a run-in with a Strawberry Shortcake doll, don’t write this fruit ingredient off till you’ve discovered the strawberry’s grown-up, sophisticated side in those scents listed below…
Smell strawberry in:
Dior Miss Dior Chérie
Givenchy Fleur d’Interdit
Givenchy Hot Couture Eau de Parfum
Juliette Has A Gun Miss Charming
Marc Jacobs Oh Lola!
Paco Rabanne Ultrared
Valentino Valentina
Karo-karounde
This flowering shrub pulses out its potent scent very powerfully, in its native west Africa. It produces an essential oil that’s reminiscent of jasmine, though a little woodier, a touch spicier and more herbal. It goes brilliantly in tuberose compositions, and beautifully enhances chypres. And depending on its ripeness, it can give hints of chocolate, or ripe fruit. Karo-karounde (also sometimes written as karo-karunde) is considered to be an aphrodisiac and is used in the rituals of sexual magic, in the Congo!
Smell karo-karounde in:
Styrax
It was first described in the 14th Century; the Arabs called benzoin ‘frankincense of Java’, and it’s had a seriously long tradition of use in pomanders, pot pourri, incense and soaps. (Rather usefully, benzoin multi-tasks as an antiseptic and an inhalant, as well as a stypic, i.e. it actually stops minor wounds bleeding.) Benzoin gives ‘body’ to many perfumes (it’s especially widely-used in ambrées) and is sweetly seductive, very reminiscent of vanilla.
Adds perfumer Andy Tauer, 'Styrax actually comes in two forms, which give different effects. The first is resinoid, which is perfect with lavender. Don´t ask me why but it seems to fix it perfectly and it calms the hyperactive lavender. The other type is leathery with woody smoky, undertones - not like birch tar, though, with its association of smoked sausages and campfires in October with wet wood. It is more the leather that you expect your gloves to exhale. I love the warm leather tones of this quality of styrax - but it needs careful handling, though.'
Smell styrax benzoin in:
Chanel Coromandel
Givenchy Pi
Prada No. 9 Benjoin
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Jasmine
Jasmine and rose are the two ‘foundation stones’ of perfumery. There’s barely a scent out there which doesn’t feature a type of jasmine somewhere in its construction – but all jasmines aren’t created equal, and (dare we say it) there’s a lot of snobbery about jasmine, with fragrance houses falling over themselves to boast of the priceless quality of their jasmine…
There are actually over 200 species of jasmine – but two members of the beautiful white-flowered jasmine family are most ‘prized’. The first is Jasminun grandiflorum, which translates as ‘big-flowered jasmine’; Chanel have their own fields of this in Grasse, and you can read about the harvest and maceration process here - and this is sometimes just referred to, then, as ‘Grasse jasmine’, because it grows so well there. The other precious member of the family is Sambac Jasmine – sometimes known as Tuscan jasmine, or Arabian jasmine, depending on who you’re speaking to… Nowadays, jasmine is grown for the fragrance industry everywhere from India to France, Morocco, Algeria, Spain and Morocco. (It actually originated in India and China, and – who knew? – is a member of the olive family.)
Jasmine gives a richness and intensity to fragrances: a sweet floral note, but with a dead-sexy muskiness to it. If you smell different concentrated ‘absolutes’ (the oily liquids created through macerating the jasmine flowers), they have their own characters: some smell medicinal, some sweet, some musky, some green. It’s extraordinary that a single plant can smell so different, depending on where it’s grown. The genius of perfumers is knowing just what they have to do, to blend those into perfectly constructed scents for us to wear.
Once upon a time, jasmine’s scent was extracted through a process called enfleurage: the flowers were pressed into layers of fat, and gradually the scent migrated to the fat, from which it could be extracted. Nowadays, it’s usually a somewhat less romantic solvent process. Whatever: it takes kilo upon kilo of flowers to produce the oil – around 8,000 hand-picked blooms to produce one millilitre (1 ml) of the ‘absolute’ – which is why it’s so extraordinarily expensive. (Jasmine’s one of the priciest ingredients in perfumery.) It can also be created synthetically – and often is, why may explain why the brands which use ‘real’ jasmine are so keen to share its story…
No wonder it’s known simply as ‘La Fleur’, in the perfume world – or ‘The Flower’… Because there’s probably no note (other than the aforementioned rose) which is so important, to ‘noses’…
Smell jasmine in:
Acqua di Parma Gelsomino Nobile
Goutal Paris Le Masmin
Bulgari Mon Jasmin Noir
Chanel No. 5
Creed Jasmal
Galbanum
This resin is a must-have for ingredient in the chypre family of fragrances (in a marriage with patchouli, bergamot and oakmoss): rich, green, mysterious, woody. A little dry, but with hints of pine in there, too. It evolves over time and is very complex, and requires a perfumer’s deftest touch – but it’s incredibly valuable to ‘noses’ as a fixative. It works wonderfully in floral accords alongside hyacinth, iris, narcissus, violet and gardenia - and blends well with spices, too.
The gum itself comes from an umbelliferous (umbrella-like) Persian grass, and can vary from amber to dark green. It’s collected from the stems in small drops (‘tears’). Isn’t it hard to imagine that a plant so green and wafty can produce a scent that’s so deep and resinous. Its use in perfumery goes back millennia: galbanum appears in the Old Testament as an ingredient in holy incense, and was an ingredient of the Egyptian perfume Metopian.
Galbanum essential oil is quite different to the gum: intensely green, slightly bitter, earthy. This product of the galbanum plant is used as a top note, instead – and some very famous fragrances (see below) get their character from this VIP perfume ingredient – most notably Chanel’s No. 19. The galbanum used in No. 19 was a very high grade from Iran. When the Iranian revolution broke out in 1979, the oil supply dried up – and Chanel’s perfumer faced the challenge of reworking this iconic scent. These are the types of challenges which perfumers face: the back-stories you can’t imagine, when you un-stopper a bottle…!
The galbanum plant produces the gum resin asafoetida, used in Indian cooking (as well as perfumery), which you can read about here.
Smell galbanum in:
Agarwood
You probably know this as oud (or oudh) – which has become an incredibly popular perfume ingredient, in the past few years. A key ingredient in old and new Arabic perfumery, renowned as an element within high-quality incense in Arabic, Japanese and Indian cultures, oudh has now definitively crossed over to the west. It’s rare, and seriously expensive, and even endangered: as it’s become more popular, high-quality oud is becoming hard to source.
That’s because it takes almost forever to produce agarwood, which is actually the resinous heart-wood from fast-growing evergreen trees – usually the Aquilaria tree. The agarwood is a result of a reaction to a fungal attack, which turns this usually pale and light wood into a dark, resinous wood with a distinct fragrance – a process that takes hundreds of years. From that ‘rotten’ wood, an oil is made – and then blended into perfume. The aroma of ‘natural’ oud is distinctively irresistible and attractive with bitter sweet and woody nuances: seriously earthy (and in small quantities, seriously sexy).
Collection of agarwood from natural forests is now illegal under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endanged Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), but some is now beginning to be plantation grown in Vietnam.
As an alternative, perfumers have turned to synthetic oud, although trained noses will tell you that it smells plainer, woody and leathery – but without the warm, balsamic qualities.
Smell agarwood (oudh) in:
Creed Royal Oud
Blood orange
The ‘blood’ refers to the deep crimson flesh of this delicious Citrus sinensis orange, which flourishes in Italy. (Nobody’s quite sure where the fruit originated: maybe the southern Mediterranean, maybe China…) Because of their luscious, hint-of-raspberry juiciness, blood oranges have become incredibly popular to eat – and now they’re making their way into zesty perfumery, too, with a warm, tangy, citrussy, berry-like quality that adds a real sparkle factor to fragrance creations, complementing other citrus elements (mandarin, neroli, grapefruit), as well as rose and geranium, and spicy notes of clove and cinnamon. In aromatherapy, blood orange is considered uplifting, stimulating and anti-depressant. Sniff one of the fragrances below, and we think you’ll agree.
Smell blood orange in:
Shay & Blue Blood Oranges
Indole
Indole is sexy, powerful, intense – va-va-voom, in a bottle. 'A very powerful molecule, in both masculine and feminine fragrances,' notes perfumer Alienor Massenet. It’s a naturally-occurring chemical, found in many essential oils – especially the glorious white flowers (jasmine, orange blossom, neroli), as well as wallflowers, and some citrus fruits. Grasse jasmine contains the highest natural levels of indole – one of the reasons it’s the priciest jasmine in the world.
But indole can also be created synthetically, producing a crystal-like substance that smells of nothing so much as your great aunt’s mothballs, till it’s massively diluted. It then conjures up jasmine and orange blossom, and goes beautifully with green notes, and other floral ingredients.
Just sometimes, a fragrance is described as being ‘indolic’ - which is pretty unhelpful if you don’t work in the perfume world. That translates as having an overripe character. And, adds Alienor Massenet, 'it's very animalic...'
Suede
No, not really suede – but perfumers can recreate the suede’s enveloping sensuality, in perfumery using synthetic ingredients. It’s fascinating to us how perfumes – which are invisible – can have a ‘texture’, but the fragrances listed below really do give a sense of that, as they cocoon you with their musky, woody, velvety, leathery qualities.
Smell suede in:
Donna Karan Cashmere Mist
Donna Karan DKNY
Donna Karan Donna Karan
Guerlain Cuit Beluga
Lacoste Pour Femme
Aloe vera
Many windowsills boast an aloe vera plant, so useful for treating burns (including sunburn) – but outside this cosmetic use, this perennial succulent plant is also – very occasionally - used as a note in perfumery: green, ‘vegetal’, fresh and aquatic.
Smell aloe vera in:
Orange blossom
Orange blossom and neroli are a bit confusing, as ingredients. They’re both from the small white flowers that blossom on the bitter orange tree (Citrus aurantia) - which is much more fragrant than the orange tree which produces the fruit for eating.
Orange blossom is extracted from the flower through the use of solvents. Neroli (which you can read about under ‘N’) is steam-distilled. They’re subtly different, in the hands of perfumers. Orange blossom absolute is richer, sweeter, headier – there are hints of that other white flower, jasmine, about it (and if you look at its chemical make-up, there are similar aroma compounds in both).
Orange blossom can be used almost symbolically in fragrance, as well as for its bewitching scent: over time, it’s come to represent purity, moral virtue and innocence, but fruitfulness and fertility, too. As a flower, orange blossom has long played a role in weddings: maidens have carried it in bouquets and woven it into bridal headdresses since the time of the Crusaders, when trees were brought from the East to Europe, and began to flourish here.
What better ingredient for fragrances suitable for brides, then...? But in fact, orange blossom’s versatility lends itself to all kinds of fragrances – so it’s very widely used, acting too as a natural ‘fixative’ to prolong the life of will-o’-the-wisp ingredients. You can enjoy it in colognes, Ambrées chypres, as well as petal-perfect florals.
Smell orange blossom in:
Francis Kurkdjian APOM Pour Femme
L’Artisan Parfumeur Seville a l’Aube
Penhaligon’s Orange Blossom
Hyacinth
One of spring’s favourite flowers, hyacinth gets its name from the Greek language: ‘flower of rain’. There’s a romantic (if slightly gory) Greek legend woven around hyacinth, actually: according to myth, the flower grew from the blood of Hyacinthus, a youth accidentally killed by Apollo – and even today, in Greece, the flower stands for ‘remembrance’. (In fact, Hyacinthus ambréeis originated in Syria, but it’s now grown ornamentally all over the world.)
Intensely green – green as spring itself – the smell of hyacinth develops as the flower blooms. In tight bud, the scent’s lightly, almost ethereally floral; as it opens, the scent becomes pumpingly potent and intoxicating (though still with that damp greenness). It’s widely used in white florals, and scents seeking to capture springtime-in-a-bottle, but because real hyacinth oil – produced by a process of extraction – is heart-stoppingly expensive, can’t-tell-it-from-real synthetic hyacinth notes are what perfumers turn to, nowadays.
Smell hyacinth in:
Goutal Paris Grand Amour
Goutal Paris Heure Exquise
Boucheron Bracelet Jaipur
Chanel Cristalle
Floris Edwardian Bouquet
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio
Guerlain Chamade
Yves Saint Laurent Y
Edelweiss
Those of a certain age will be most familiar with edelweiss as the name of a song crooned by Christopher Plummer in the movie of The Sound of Music. Off-screen, this flowering plant flourishes further afield than the European alps, where it’s a protected species: edelweiss is nowadays most commonly found in Javanese mountain regions. It smells sweet, but not as cloying as hyacinth. A short-lived perennial with beautiful white flowers, edelweiss has long been valued as a medicinal plant – but in fragrance, it’s not actually used very widely. Edelweiss does make an appearance in a couple of Swiss Army fragrances – but it’s there, we suspect, more to make a link that evokes the wide open spaces of Switzerland than for the note itself.
Smell edelweiss in:
Isoeugenol
Smell carnation in a scent? It’s more likely to be isoeugenol, an ingredient found naturally in the essential oils of nutmeg and ylang-ylang, but which can also be synthesised from eugenol. (Look under ‘E’ for more about eugenol.)
Rosewood
Rosewood has been prized by carpenters and furniture makers for centuries: we know it as rock-solid, strong, darkly handsome and perfect for everything from guitars to chess pieces.
But wait! It’s not that type of rosewood which perfumers use, with its floral, slightly rose-like odour: that’s from the Aniba rosaeodora tree, better known as Brazilian rosewood. It takes a massive amount of the tree’s wood to produce the oil: each tree’s said to yield just 1%, by weight, of oil to wood. With such huge amounts of timber felled to extract teensy qualities of oil, it’s no wonder that Brazilian rosewood trees – which are grown in the rainforests of Brazil, Mexico and Peru – are now protected, under CITES (the convention which safeguards endangered flora and fauna). It’s also on the official list of endangered flora of Brazil. So: how come rosewood still turns up on ingredients list…? Clever perfumers know that other woods deliver similar effects, and can be used to replace its richness.
Smell rosewood in:
Goutal Eau du Ciel
Cartier Must de Cartier
Chanel Cristalle
Dior Dune
Dior Hypnotic Poison
Dior Poison
Diptyque Tam Dao
Giorgio Armani Sensi
Givenchy Amarige
Givenchy Ange ou Demon
Jovoy Paris Boisé
Paco Rabanne Ultraviolet
Pink pepper
Pink pepper is now a ‘hot’ perfume ingredient (in several senses): bright, cheerful, with a woody-rosy scent that’s quite different to the nose-tingling spicy warmth of the more-familiar black pepper. And the difference shouldn’t surprise us: pink pepper comes from the Brazilian pepper tree and the Peruvian pepper tree (relatives of mangoes and cashews), not the Piper nigrum plant which provides the spice we scrunch onto our food. (Pink pepper – a.k.a. baies rose – is also edible, though, with a citrussy flavour.)
Jean-Claude Ellena and Geza Schoen - who creates scents for Ormonde Jayne – use a lot of pink pepper, and Karyn Khoury (Creative Director for Estée Lauder) has long been a fan, first introducing it into Pleasures, which has become a major classic: pink pepper adds a ‘piquancy’ and freshness, and it’s here to stay.
Smell pink pepper in:
Carolina Herrera 212 Sexy
Cartier Délices
Chanel Chance
Escentric Molecules Molecule No. 1
Yves Saint Laurent Elle
Ylang ylang
Once upon a time, ylang ylang – a tendrilled tropical flower which blossoms on a tall tree – was known as ‘poor man’s jasmine’ (because it has many similarities, scent-wise). But not any more: this seriously exotic, intense, rich fragrance note is at the top of the price scale for ingredients – though even so, it’s still present in as much as 40% of quality perfume creations. Ylang ylang famously clambers round the heart of some of the most beloved fragrances in the world, including the best-known of all: Chanel No. 5. (The perfume’s creator is on record as saying that without ylang-ylang in the formula, he couldn’t have used such a high dose of the champagne-like aldehydes that give No. 5 its airy overture: it ‘tethers’ the creation). It’s generally recognised to be one of the more ‘aphrodisiac’, sensual note in the perfumer’s box of tricks. 'It's often used to surround jasmine, in white floral bouquets,' notes perfumer Alienor Massenet. 'It has an almost cinnamon quality, yet is very feminine.'
Ylang yang is also luscious, buttery, a little apricot-y and – when smelled ‘neat’ – is a tad medicinal, too. (In aromatherapy, it dispels tension.) The note is steam-distilled or solvent-extracted from the creamy flowers of the tall plant (Cananga odorata) – it can be either a tree or a vine, growing to almost 20 metres. Ylang ylang grows in the Phillipines, Java, Réunion and the Comoro Islands. Most of us are unlikely to smell it growing wild, but apparently it’s deliciously, delicately sweet, in flower form.
But why the high price? It takes around 400 kilos of flowers to produce one kilo of essential oil, and each tree provides around 10 kilos of flowers a year. Go figure.
PS Say it ‘ill-ang ill-ang’.
Smell ylang ylang in:
Chanel No. 5
Dior Diorissimo
Maison Francis Kurkdjian APOM Pour Femme
Allspice
This – yes – spicy ingredient comes from the dried, unripe berries of the Pimenta dioica (pimento), an evergreen tree that flourishes in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America.
Why allspice? Apparently, this got its name from the way it manages to smell like a combination of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg – sweet and dry, all at once. You might know it best from Caribbean jerk seasoning, or from Middle Eastern cuisine (or Thanksgiving’s pumpkin pie spice mix) – and in perfumery, allspice offers a similarly warm, sensual, nutty quality.
It’s a key ingredient in Bay Rum aftershave/scent, and often used in men’s perfumery – but also to spice up a chypre fragrance, or in a mysterious ambrée…
Smell allspice in:
Miller Harris Feuilles de Tabac
Mimosa
Mimosa. Acacia. Cassie. All names for the same plant, with those fabulous yellow pom-pom flowers which look delicate, but fill a room with their dreamy sweetness in minutes. The bark, roots and resin are all still used to create incense for rituals, in Nepal, India and China (including Tibet - and acacia/mimosa’s used in mainstream perfumery, too: the scent has a warm, honey, iris-like, powdery airiness, which enriches the complexity of fragrances. Mimosa has a long tradition in perfumery: it was first used in making incense, and symbolised resurrection and immortality: Egyptian mythology linked the acacia tree with the tree of life, described in the Myth of Osiris and Isis. (Aromatherapeutically, mimosa is said to have properties that help to relieve stress and depression, FYI.)
Mimosas are pod-bearing shrubs and trees now native mostly to Australia and the Pacific, though they put on a pretty spectacular show around the heartland of perfumery in Grasse, too, in the south of France . For centuries, aside from perfumery, the mimosa tree has been used for many different purposes from medicinal to ornamental. The seeds and fruit are edible and used in many cuisines and soft drinks, the bark produces a gum that is used as a stabiliser (gum Arabic) and in the production for printing and ink; and the timber is used in furniture making.
An all-round useful ingredient, and a dreamily-scented one at that.
Smell mimosa in:
Annick Goutal le Mimosa
Bulgari Pour Femme
Chanel Coco
DKNY Energising for Women
Frédéric Malle Une Fleur de Cassie
Guerlain Après L’Ondée
Gucci Alchemist's Garden Winter Spring
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mimosa Pour Moi
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numéro 1
Miller Harris Couer de Fleur
Prada Infusion de Mimosa
Versace Yellow Diamond
Fig
Fig’s become an incredibly fashionable fragrance note for both men and women, lately, with its complex mix of bitter green and milky-sweet elements, conjuring up languid lunches in the shade of fig trees in hot, sunny places.
Notes of fig leaf and fig fruit can both be used. The almost bitter green leaf offers us a sense of cool and shade. The fruit, by contrast, is lush, juicy, ripe and sunny. Sometimes, a perfumer will put them side by side in the same fragrance, to create the equivalent of a fig ‘soliflore’. (Strictly it should probably be a ‘solifruit’, but there you go.) Fig also goes well with coconut, and other green notes.
As they have for thousands of years, these deciduous trees grow (impressively fast) in the Mediterranean and the Middle East – although the fig note we smell in contemporary fragrances is actually quite likely to be synthetic, from ingredients which go by the name of ‘stemone’ (it smells very green, and is produced by the fragrance house Givaudan) and ‘octalactone gamma’ (more prune-like and sappy).
According to the Bible, fig leaves preserved the modesty of Adam and Eve. Today, we’re more likely to wear fig behind our ears, and on our wrists…
Smell fig in:
Ivy
Cool, dark, green: the leaves and the little black berries from this self-clinging evergreen plant can be steam-distilled and turned into a refreshing green fragrance top note, with just a dash of spiciness. The note has a mystical air to it: in the ‘language’ of plants, it’s been linked with prosperity, fidelity, virtue and positivity. Ivy was also carried by women who wanted to attract good fortune. Not bad allusions for a fragrance note, we’d say.
Smell isoeugenol in:
Goutal Paris Eau de Camille
Diptyque Eau de Lierre
Lemon
Lemons and flowers are a perfect marriage, in perfumery. (Think of the way that lemon can ‘cut through’ rich flavours, in cooking, and you get an idea of why the two work so well together.) So while you may be familiar with lemon in Colognes and summer splashes, lemon’s actually present in many, many fragrances.
Its history’s a bit blurry – were lemons first grown in Southern India, or Burma, or China…? But we do know that the Arabs brought this evergreen tree to Europe in around the 8th Century; lemon later made its way to America through seeds carried on Christopher Columbus’s ship, in 1493. The scented oil’s obtained by cold-pressing the peel – and unlike so many other plant ingredients, the aroma that you get from that process is almost exactly the natural scent of the ripe fruit’s peel.
Lemons grow all over the world and are a hugely popular fruit: where would cooking be without lemon’s zest and juice…? Ditto fragrance: it delivers energy, brightness, cheer and refreshment – like sparkling, sweet sunshine, bottled.
Smell lemon in:
Goutal Paris Eau d’Hadrien
Chanel Chance
Chanel Cristalle
Creed Bois de Cedrat
Guerlain Jicky
Guerlain Shalimar
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Acqua Universalis
Miller Harris Fleur de Bois
Blueberry
Refreshing, subtly sweet – or positively jam-like: blueberry has different facets which perfumers have the power to play up. (Especially now fruity-florals are so popular in our fragrance wardrobes: blueberries work really well to enhance floral perfumes.) The flowering Vaccinum myrtillus shrub that gives us blueberries is native to north America, but now grown around the world: its nutritious berries aren’t just delish, they’re packed with health-boosting antioxidants. And they smell lovely. (Close your eyes, bite a blueberry open and inhale before popping one in your mouth, next time.)
Smell blueberry in:
Lalique Amethyst
Tobacco
The dried leaves – sweet-smelling, a touch earthy and hay-like – are solvent extracted from the plant. (Which was one of the four ‘sacred’ plants of the Native American culture, alongside squash, corn and beans.) Famously, Nicotiana tabacum - member of the nightshade family made its way to Europe via the Spanish, in around 1528. Plenty of people seem to find tobacco almost as addictive in perfumery as cigarettes or cigars – but it’s a healthier way to indulge, for sure.
Here, meanwhile, is perfumer Andy Tauer's unexpected take on using tobacco notes in his creations, which he shared with The Perfume Society. 'Tobacco: loved by many when lit, smoke inhaled, brain bright and crisp. But in perfumery, I love it for its multitude of facets. There is a wood line. There are dried fruits giving it a gourmand character, supported by what brings "cocoa" to mind. There is an animalic, furry, dirty line. And there is a quality that says "bathroom, used, not cleaned for a while", and so much more. Thus, it can be combined with all sorts of other notes: Think flowers, roses. The darkness of tobacco sets the flower petals in fire. Think patchouli, think vetiver, think amber, think musks, think.... endless.'
Smell tobacco in:
Amouage Tribute
Chanel Les Exclusifs Sycomore
Guerlain Tonka Impériale
Yves Saint Laurent Belle d’Opium
West Indian Bay
This key ingredient of the legendary aftershave (West Indian Bay Rum) is actually no relation to the bay leaves we throw into our cooking pots and casseroles. The West Indian bay tree – Pimenta racemosa – with its leathery leaves, belongs to the myrtle family. But its aromatic nature really comes out when a distillation of the dried leaves and/or berries (in rum and water) is blended into perfumes (and aftershaves). This masculine splash started as an artisan creation on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, but many other West Indian islands (as well as American and European fragrance companies) now make a version. You may be able to make it out West Indian bay itself among the cinnamon, oil of cloves, citrus and other spice oils.
Smell West Indian bay in:
Comme des Garçons 2
Lalique Le Parfum Lalique
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Geranium
For many of us, geranium has an incredibly nostalgic scent: the scent of a grandmother’s greenhouse, rubbing a furry-leaved plant between our fingertips. In fact, there are hundreds of species of geranium, with scents that conjure up many other plants: lemon, apple, lime, mint, orange, rose, citronella, camphor, pineapple, sage and more. The leaves and stems can be steam-distilled to produce oils, then, with quite different characters – depending on the variety.
Mostly, the type used in perfumery is Pelargonium graveolens, or rose geranium: it gives a scent that’s similar to rose, but with a lemony twist, and less of the powderiness. The most prized geranium of all comes from the Ile Bourbon, with its rich, green, fruity-mint rosiness. (Such complexity, in a single ingredient: no wonder many perfumers love it.) But it’s also grown in Algiers, Morocco – and in Grasse, we saw Chanel experimenting with growing geranium in their fields. Geranium’s used in colognes, herbal scents, florals and chypre fragrances. (Plus the fougère family, which is mostly men’s scents.)
Legend has it that geraniums first grew where the prophet Mohammed hung his shirt to dry in the sun. And there are other myths linked with geranium: they’re said to grow in pots near witches’ cottages. (Which probably pegs most British gardeners as witches, then.)
Smell geranium in:
Yves Saint Laurent Paris
Frederic Malle Noir Epices
Heliotrope
When you smell something sweet, powdery, fluffy-little-cloud-like in a perfume, chances are there’s a touch of heliotrope in there. Or do you get a whiff of almond…? Maybe that’s chameleon-like heliotrope, in the blend… A touch of vanilla? That could be heliotrope, too.
The use of this gloriously purple-coloured plant in perfumery goes right the way back to Ancient Egypt. Technically, heliotrope can be still extracted by maceration (or through solvent extraction, the modern form of enfleurage), an echo of those times - but today it’s synthetic heliotropin – read about it here – which perfumers rely on.
Heliotrope’s teamed with violets and iris for a talcum-powdery, lipstick-esque sweetness – but as you may now have guessed, it’s actually very versatile, becoming almost mouthwatering when used alongside bitter almond, each ingredient turbo-charging the other’s marzipan-ish qualities. Put it with frangipani or vanilla, though, and their mutual sweetness comes out… (If you were to look under a microscope, vanilla essential oil actually contains a little heliotropin in its make-up.) You’ll find heliotrope in many legendary Guerlain fragrances, as well as countless contemporary ‘gourmand’ scents.
An annual-flowering member of the borage family, also known as ‘cherry pie flower’, you’ll often find Heliotropium arborescens on sale in nurseries and garden centres for summer bedding (and you can create a wonderfully scented display with the plants, which butterflies will also love).
Smell heliotrope in:
Guerlain L'Heure Bleue
Apricot
In perfumery, apricot can be lush and sweet – like the fruit – or bitter, like the extract of the apricot kernel (think of an Amaretto-ish bitter almond scent). It’s been used in scent-making almost forever – early Arab perfume recipes recorded by Al-Kindi include the use of apricot. In modern day perfumery the scent of apricot is re-created synthetically, most often for a soft, almost fuzzy fruitiness. Sometimes, alternatively, the scent of the blossom of the apricot tree (a.k.a. Prunus armeniaca) is evoked: pretty, soft and feminine, and a bit ‘floaty’ (just like the white or pink flowers themselves).
Smell apricot in:
Michael Kors Signature
Fenugreek
Between the Latin and Ayurvedic, fenugreek has almost too many names to count: methi, methikaa, vastikaa, dipani, bird’s foot, Greek clover – and so it goes on. (Don’t worry: we won’t test you.) This spice has been in use for thousands of years: Pliny described an ‘unguent of fenugreek’, and the roots were also used in early Arab perfumery.
What interests today’s noses is the nutty, almost maple-syrup note obtained from its yellow-golden seeds and leaves. (The seeds, meanwhile, can also be used in pot pourri.)
Smell fenugreek in:
Banana
Since gourmand fragrances took off, banana’s been used more widely: the sweetness of the juicy fruit note gives a good-enough-to-eat quality. But smell carefully and you might pick up hints of pink jasmine or even ylang-ylang, perhaps with green undertones. (And don’t blame us if you’re busted sniffing the fruitbowl!) In some cases, the juice of the fruit – from the Musa sapientum plant – is distilled. More likely, these days, it’s synthesised. The leaves of banana are sometimes used in perfumery, too: less sweet, more green and subtle. (Meanwhile, did you that technically, a banana plant is a herb, not a tree…? Just threw that in because you never know when it might come in useful in Trivial Pursuit, someday…)
Smell banana in:
L'Artisan Parfumeur Bana Banana
Lavender
Of all the fragrance ingredients out there, lavender’s probably the most widely recognised (even if blindfolded) for its soothing, calming aromatic qualities. (It’s actually been proven to quell anxiety and promote sleep.) An ancient natural remedy, lavender’s a flowering member of the mint family – well, several members, because different types of lavender are used in perfumery.
The types mainly grown for fragrance are Lavandula angustifolia (or Lavandula officinalis), Lavandula latifolia, or the more camphor-y Lavandula stoechas, which smells more like rosemary. The hybrid Dutch lavender, or Lavandula intermedia, produces an oil called lavandin, with a sharper and more medicinal odour. Steam distillation’s used to extract the essential oil.
Lavender is thought to have originated in the highlands of India, but today it’s happy in all sorts of sunny, stony, well-drained spots around the world. France is still the epicentre of production, though: more and 80,000 kilos of lavender are grown each year. The name comes from the Latin, so we’re told: ‘lavere’ means ‘to wash’, and the Romans perfumed their baths with lavender oil. In Medieval times, lavender was strewn on the floors of churches and homes, used to scent linen and clothing, and also in pot pourri and sachets. (It helps to repel insects – even though bees love it, on the plant.) Come Tudor times, quilted jackets and caps were stuffed with lavender. (A tradition we’d quite like to see revived…!)
In modern fragrance, lavender is lightly used in ‘feminine’ scents, although it turns up in plenty of ‘shared’ colognes and men’s fragrances; it works well alongside other aromatic ingredients like pine, sage and rosemary, as well as patchouli, oakmoss, bergamot, neroli and orange blossom.
Says 'nose' Julie Massé: 'Lavender adds a herb-y note - but interestingly, by adding it to other fragrance notes you can push it towards 'cool' herb-y, towards the smell of mint, or you can go in the other direction and push it towards 'hot' herb-y, almost spicy, like the scent of a hot summer's night.'
Refreshing stuff...
Smell lavender in:
Goutal Paris Eau de Lavande
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mon Numero 4
Penhaligon’s English Fern
Woods of Windsor Lavender
Yardley English Lavender
Anise
Anise, aniseed – same thing: an annual herb (parsley family, FYI), which grows in the eastern Mediterranean region and south-west Asia, and has a strong licorice/fennel/tarragon flavour, often enjoyed in alcoholic drinks or sweeties (the famous aniseed balls of your granny’s childhood…)
It’s sweet and very aromatic, and really very popular in perfumery as a result: the most celebrated example is Guerlain’s gorgeous, iconic L’Heure Bleu. (Not to be confused with Star anise – although the key component of the essential oil, ‘anethole’, is actually found in both.)
Smell anise in:
Prada Les Infusions de Prada Amande
Almond
Almond notes are very ‘gourmand’, with a foodie quality – and most often enjoyed in fragrances within that almost good-enough-to-eat perfume family: almond’s a less sweet alternative to vanilla, delivering a buttery or creamy impression.
This tree - native to the Middle East and south Asia but now also blossoming across Europe, Africa and the United States – first offers us a froth of white or pale pink blossoms: almond blossom absolute, taken from those flowers, is a soft note with hints of subtle heliotrope, or honey. The absolute created from the nut itself is sweet, but with a bitter edge (think Amaretto, here); almond can give a fragrance a marzipan quality, maybe even remind you of macaroons.
Last but not least, there’s an ‘almond tree’ note use sometimes used by perfumers - in this case, a synthetic ‘fantasy’ note: green, nutty and woody.
Smell almond in:
Dior Hypnotic Poison
L'Artisan Perfumer Jour de Fete
Mint
Instantly cooling and utterly refreshing, mint has been infused for centuries in various preparations to be taken as a herbal remedy for digestive complaints, to soothe inflamed skin and also to splash on as a tonic for the senses.
In Greek mythology, mint is seen as "the herb of hospitality"- early records show mint was strewn over floors to deodorise and freshen rooms, as stepping on the leaves helped to spread its scent through the room, masking noxious odours best left undescribed...
Correctly known by the name Mentha (also known as mint, from Greek míntha) there are many differing varieties - the species ranging from 13-18 depending on who you ask, and proving rather indistinct to categorise exactly as hybridisation between the species occurs naturally. Indeed, there are so many varieties and cross-overs (see below for a selection from Wikipedia's extensive page), that to date, no one author has successfully categorised them all.
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Highly aromatic, merely brushing against the dark green leaves releases the potent scent, all varieties of the plant have some common characteristics - mostly perennial, mint simply adores to be near water, pools and in partial shade.
Traditionally used as a medicinal herb - mostly in order to treat stomach ache and nausea - the Menthol mint essential oil (used at 40–90% concentration in compositions) has long been enjoyed for its skin-cooling and spirit-reviving properties in Colognes, perfumes and cosmetic products, and overall, mint is enjoying something of a resurgence in both male and female fragrances over the past few years.
Used by the handful for a bracing freshness or plucked by the leaf to add just a hint of breeze, mint is a favourite that's here to stay.
Smell mint in:
Roos & Roos Mentha Religiosa
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia Essenza
M.Micallef Ylang in Gold
Sequoia
A mighty tree, a mighty base note: this giant redwood member of the cypress family, which grows for thousands of years, is becoming popular in men’s fragrances – and a handful of women’s, for its dry earthiness. Because the Sequoia sempervirens tree is endangered, however – through loss of habit and over-logging – chances are it’s a ‘fantasy’ sequoia.
Smell sequoia in:
Comme des Garçons Sequoia
Orchid
Do orchids smell? Not the ones we now buy in supermarkets, which have become such a popular design statement. But yes, in the wild, some do: the Cattleya orchid, in particular – though even that varies, from heady and vanilla-y to light and clean. (Other orchids - obviously not used in perfumery - can stink of rotten meat, or faeces. The smell is to attract the type of insect that pollinates the plant: some clearly get off on pretty smells, others on stinkers.)
There are thought to be over 20,000 different orchids altogether. The name (who knew?) comes from the Greek ‘órkhis’, literally meaning "testicle", thanks to the shape of the root.
Not terribly romantic, but we do like the Greek myth behind the naming of the plant. So the legend goes, Orchis – son of a satyr and a nymph (quite a combo) stumbled upon a festival of Dionysus (a.k.a. Bacchus), in a forest. As tended to happen at ‘bacchanales’, he imbibed too much, and became somewhat over-amorous towards a priestess. The Bacchanalians tore him apart. His father prayed for Orchis to be restored, but instead the gods transformed him into the flower we know today as the orchid.
In reality, when you smell ‘orchid’ as a fragrance note, today it’s more likely to be synthetic. Nice myth, though.
Smell orchid in:
Dior J’Adore
Jean-Paul Gaultier Classique
Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb
Marshmallow
Marshmallow isn’t just a smell. It’s a sensory experience: that candied breath of sugar. So with the rise in gourmand fragrances, marshmallow has begun to feature as a ‘fantasy’ note in perfumes, adding an airy sweetness, sometimes with a ‘toasted marshmallow’ edge.
Strictly, marshmallow is also a plant: Althaea officinalis was used to cure sore throats. And it’s sticky, which is how the powdered root came to be used in candy-making. Most marshmallow-makers today use gelatine (for convenience – and because the root’s quite hard to come by), mixing it with sugar and corn syrup to create the familiar, ‘puffy’, sponge-y sweets.
The gourmet food world has just ‘discovered’ marshmallows, with ‘designer’ marshmallows becoming available. And we fully expect it to be used in quite a few more ‘mouthwatering’ fragrances yet…
Smell marshmallow in:
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire
Tolu balsam
Tolu resin is tapped from the trunks of the tall Myroxylon toluiferum tree, which mostly grows in South America and the West Indies: small incisions are made in the bark, from which thick yellow-brown ‘drops’ are collected. Rich and naturally complex, there are soft, come-hither floral elements to the balsam, as well as sweet vanilla and spicy cinnamon notes; it’s often used in ambrées. (This note is also sometimes called American balsam, or even ‘opobalsam’.) Here's perfumer Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays on Tolu balsam...
'Funny how the official descriptions just say is smells balsamic. If someone asks a perfumer what balsamic means, we’d hand them a pot of tolu. It’s another one of those sticky, deep dark resins that you have to smell next to each other in order to spot the difference, another of those thousand year old base notes... In traditional perfumery you’d use it to blend with the top and mid notes, you’d leave the mixture to macerate for months, to give it weight and depth, and to help keep the lighter molecules from flying away too rapidly.
These days you’ve got synthetics which are much easier to use, cheaper to buy and hang around for longer and act more rapidly. So why use tolu at all? Because its feels like a glorious smell. It does more things to your mind and body than just set off your scent sensors. At least that’s what I believe. It makes your perfume do more than just smell good. It starts a conversation with the "still small voice of calm".'
Smell balsam of Tolu in:
Guerlain Chamade
Camphor
Noses know to tread v-e-r-y carefully with this most bracing, potent note – which can all-too-easily conjure up mothballs, or cough medicine, or Vick’s chest rub. As an ingredient, camphor can be extracted from the camphor tree (an evergreen which flourishes in Asia), but it’s also present in rosemary and eucalyptus: they have that same ‘lung-opening’, nostril-opening effect. Camphor – which comes in the form of a white, crystal-like powder - is actually quite popular in Arabic perfumery: it’s present in a quarter of the legendary formulations from a renowned perfumer known as ‘al-Kindi’, as well as being is in widespread therapeutic use: for embalming, as a medicine (see aforementioned chest rub etc.), and in pomanders to protect against infection. In India, meanwhile, camphor lends its pungency to cooking. In an expert perfumer’s hands, though, that potency works to emphasise and amplify other ingredients, like patchouli, or to cut through what can be the overwhelming sweetness of tuberose and other white flowers.
Smell camphor in:
Frederic Malle Carnal Flower
Nectarine
Sweet, juicy, peachily honey-like: nectarines have been dripping their bright fruitiness over quite a few compositions, of late, riding on the popularity of fruity-florals. (Nectarine goes particularly well with fruity notes, actually.) Can anyone who’s not a trained ‘nose’ tell the difference between this and an actual peach? Yes, if we eat it: nectarines are of course smooth-skinned, and have a whiter flesh. But in a perfume…? We’d love to hear if you can tell them apart. (Though we do also invite you to improve your sense of smell through one of our nationwide workshops for subscribers – click here for details.)
Smell nectarine in:
Penhaligon’s Artemisia
Yves Saint Laurent La Collection Yvresse
Bellini
A Bellini cocktail is a must for many thousands of visitors to Venice, who since 1948 have flocked to Harry’s Bar in Venice to sip on their speciality: a cocktail of sparkling white Prosecco and white peach puree. (And they’re in good company: Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles were early habitués of this now world-famous bar, with its strangely low seats and tables that almost make you feel you’re at a doll’s tea party.) You can’t shake a real cocktail into a scent, of course – so the drink has been conjured up synthetically as a ‘fantasy’ fragrance ingredient to give a sense of sparkling, crisp peachiness. You’ll find it in a handful of creamy, floral feminine fragrances.
Smell Bellini in:
Floral Street Sunflower Pop
Melon
When you spritz a scent and get an aquatic hit of melon, it’s probably not actually melon you smell – that so-refreshing summer fruit – but an ingredient called ‘calone’, one of the best-known synthetic ingredients in a perfumer’s weaponry. Launched in the 1990s, calone recreates the honey-like, watery qualities of the delectable fruit – a relation of squashes and cucumbers - which originated in Africa and south-west Asia. The availability of this synthetic ingredient has probably helped to shape the trend for aquatic fragrances, as well as for fruity-florals.
Probably the most famous ‘melon’ fragrance is Calyx: originally launched under the Prescriptives brand (now a long-lost part of Estée Lauder), and newly relaunched by Clinique – but with fruity-florals still ‘hotter’ than a beach in St. Barth’s, there are plenty of others…
Smell melon in:
Dior J’Adore
Floris Fleur
Frederic Malle Carnal Flower
Guerlain Champs Elysées
Miller Harris Le Pamplemousse
Thierry Mugler Angel
Apple
Did you know that the apple’s really a member of the rose family…? (Or rather, lots of members: there are thousands of varieties of Malus domestica, a tree originating in Asia). What it gives to fragrance, though, is a fresh, crisp, mouthwatering quality, reminiscent of biting into an apple itself.
Apples have been a part of fragrance creation right back to the medieval era of Arab perfumery. It isn’t just the fruit that’s used: apple blossom gives a soft, floral air to fragrances – and lately, there’s been a trend to using something called an ‘apple tree’ note: in fact, a synthetic, ‘fantasy’ ingredient which delivers a fruity-woodiness.
Through the rise in popularity of fruity-floral fragrances, apple’s been having a moment in the sun.
Smell apple in:
DKNY Be Delicious
Penhaligon's Artemisia
Bergamot
Bergamot orange is the fragrant citrus fruit of the Citrus bergamia, a small evergreen tree which blossoms during the winter. The fruit is the size of an orange, with a yellow-green colour similar to a lemon. The juice tastes less sour than lemon, but more bitter than grapefruit – which explains why bergamot has become known for its aromatic essential oil, rather than as something we eat for breakfast... (Although bergamot is used in Earl Grey tea…)
Its scent is fruity-sweet with mild spicy hints, and you’ll encounter it as a top note in compositions within most of the fragrance families – male and female. In fact, it’s used in different proportions in almost all modern perfumes - particularly within chypre and fougère fragrance categories, giving an initial fresh, airy, uplifting quality. (No surprise that in aromatherapy, bergamot is actually used to treat depression…) For perfumers, it’s invaluable for helping to blend notes into a single bouquet, and fix them there…
Its use goes back for centuries: bergamot was famously known to be a component of the original Eau de Cologne, developed in Germany by J.M. Farina in the 17th Century. For centuries, the essential oil of bergamot has had a close link to perfumery and scent, even used to scent small papier-mâché boxes for keeping small precious mementos - like locks of hair and ‘love letters.
The word bergamot derives from bergomotta in Italian and from Bergamum, a town in Italy. But references also exist, indicating the name comes from the Turkish word beg-armudi – which translates as ‘prince's pear’ or ‘prince of pears’…
Bergamot is commercially grown in southern Calabria in southern Italy, where more than 80% of the essential oil is produced – by zesting the rind. It’s also grown in southern France and in Côte d'Ivoire for the essential oil (and in in southern Turkey for its marmalade…)
Smell bergamot in:
Miller Harris Terre de Bois
Opoponax
A wonderful name for a glorious gum resin ingredient that’s smokey and soft, luminous and sensual all at once. (Some people think it smells like crushed ivy leaves. Others are reminded of angelica, frankincense and celery, while we love this quote from the blogger Boisdejasmin, when she dipped her testing strip into some opoponax: ‘The wave of warm, sweet scent washed over me: it smelled of aged whiskey, mahogany shavings and bitter caramel, but it was also velvety and powdery.’ The resin is extracted from the bark of the Commiphora eyrthraea tree (mostly from Somalia), and is also known as ‘sweet myrrh’. (It’s sometimes spelled opopanax, too, with an ‘a’.)
Opoponax catches alight easily, which explains why it’s been used for incense for centuries: King Solomon apparently regarded opopanax as ‘the noblest of incense gums’. In perfumery, it lends itself most beautifully to Ambrées, working its exotic magic in many much-loved scents.
Here's what perfumer Sarah McCartney has to say about this ingredient: 'I bought opoponax at first just for the name. It’s my new favourite word. I had to see what it was like, then I fell totally in love with it. No one outside perfumery knows what it smells like by itself because to blends to beautifully with other materials. I described it recently as having the consistency of molasses, but they’d never heard of molasses either so let’s say it’s like incense treacle. These resinous materials like myrrh, the Peru and tolu balsams, benzoin, labdanum and opoponax have been around for thousands of years, helping perfumes to stick around for longer, blending with flowers, citrus fruit and herbs. They give perfumes a gentle, deep dark, sensuality. When I take the lid off and sniff, I can’t help letting out a long appreciative mmmmmmmmm.'
Smell opoponax in:
Benzoin
In common with balsam of Peru and balsam of tolu, this is an oil – tapped from a tree (Styrax benzoin), after deliberately damaging the bark. It was first described in the 14th Century; the Arabs called benzoin ‘frankincense of Java’, and it’s had a seriously long tradition of use in pomanders, pot pourri, incense and soaps. (Rather usefully, benzoin multi-tasks as an antiseptic and an inhalant, as well as a stypic, i.e. it actually stops minor wounds bleeding.) Benzoin gives ‘body’ to many perfumes (it’s especially widely-used in ambrées) and is sweetly seductive. As perfumer Alienor Massenet explains: 'Benzoin is as suave as vanilla, and has a touch of cinnamon to it. I use it for feminine and masculine fragrances: it gives an "openness" and sensuality to fragrances.'
Smell benzoin in:
Chanel Coromandel
Givenchy Pi
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Leather
Here's what leather means to perfumer Andy Tauer, and how he uses it in his creations. 'The first association, when you tell me "leather", honestly, is "Swiss Army" and me serving there as soldier: my generation had the privilege of serving in thick leather shows that were made to endure a Swiss invasion of Moscow, including the way back. Solid and as uncomfortable as can be. Every evening we had to brush them, polish them. As mixed as my memories of proudly serving in the Swiss Army are, I loved the scent of my leather boots. Rough leather, made from Swiss cows, with a thickened skin due to a happy but rough life in the Alps (we can dream, can't we?). Leather in perfumery is not a natural essential oil that you buy.
He echoes our comment above: 'You have to make your leather chord. Birch tar can be one of the ingredients going in there. Leather as side note brings out, by contrast as so often in perfumery, flowers. Flowers bloom on skin when there´s leather in the base of a fragrance. It is like sticking bright colored flowers into my army boots. Wonderful, and a reminder how precious peace is.'
Leather and perfumery go way back together, meanwhile. The links are rooted in the tradition of the ‘gantier parfumeurs’, a guild of glove-makers in Paris who fashioned gloves for royalty and the aristocracy as far back as the 15th Century. The whole tanning process smells repulsive, though, so leathers were treated with oils, musk, civet and ambergris, to mask the smell of the animals’ skins.
The very first ‘leather’ scent, so far as records show, was worn by King George III: Creed’s Royal English Leather. He was so taken with the smell of scented gloves that he asked Creed to make it into a fragrance – and you can still smell that today…
Smell leather in:
Chanel Les Exclusifs 28 La Pausa
Chanel Les Exclusifs Cuir de Russie
Guerlain Shalimar
L’Artisan Parfumer Dzing!
Paco Rabanne 1 Million
Civet
Perfumers love animalic notes – including civet – for the raw sexiness they deliver to perfumes, and for that reason it’s incredibly popular and found in many of the world’s most notoriously seductive scents.
Heaven knows how or why someone had the idea of using the soft, paste-like glandular secretion from underneath the swishy striped tails of civet cats, however, which they use to mark their territory: it’s extraordinarily powerful and even stomach-turningly obnoxious in its concentrated form. (Yes, think concentrated ‘cat pee’.) But in the hands of a gifted nose…? Diluted, blended, civet morphs into something altogether lustily musky and inviting, adding warmth and radiance to floral scents especially, and working as a ‘fixative’.
Actually, it was 10th Century Arabic perfumers who pioneered the use of civet (which isn’t a cat at all, rather confusingly; it looks more like a spotted-and-striped possum). It rapidly became incredibly desirable (in every way) as a perfume ingredient, with artisans using civet (albeit highly-diluted) to scent gloves, in Shakespeare’s time.
There are two types of civet: one African (its habitat spans Ethiopia through to South Africa), and Indian, native to Nepal, Bangladesh and Vietnam. For a while, attempts were made to keep civet cats in captivity – including in Britain – to ensure a ready supply of this perfume ingredient. Happily for civet cats, most of the civet now used is synthetically recreated, for ethical reasons (the cats are kept in cages and stressed, in order to produce the secretion) – although we have heard that some small perfumers still secretly source the real thing, a practise we absolutely can’t condone.
Smell civet in:
Amouage Gold pour Femme
Calvin Klein Obsession
Cartier Le Must de Cartier
Chanel Coco
Chanel No. 5
Dior La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Leather Oud
Guerlain Shalimar
Yves Saint Laurent Y
Rum
Yummy, yummy rum: wonderful in cocktails to drink, glorious in perfumes – an appetising ‘gourmand’ ingredient that pairs well with woods, adding complexity, sweetness and intrigue. (Though rum’s more widely used to add swagger to men’s perfumery, quite a few opulent women’s scents also feature a slug of this multi-faceted ingredient, which can have hints of vanilla, clove, ginger or ripe fruits). Rum itself dates back to the 17th Century and Caribbean sugar plantations: it’s distilled from molasses, the dark and syrupy by-product of sugar cane, and when aged in oak barrels takes on deep golden tones, and rich flavours. The name? Short for rumbullion or rumbustion, slang words which meant ‘tumult’ or ‘uproar’ (which can be what happens after one rum cocktail too many, even now). For a while, it was actually an accepted currency in Europe – ah, those were the days…
Smell rum in:
Byredo Accord Oud
Carolina Herrera 212 VIP
Givenchy Ysatis
Guerlain Elixir Charnel Gourmand Coquin
Thierry Mugler Alien Liqueur de Parfum
Citral
Whoosh! That’s the zesty, lemony burst of citral, a natural aldehyde which is present in the oil of quite a few plants, including lemon myrtle, lemongrass, lemon tea tree, lemon verbena, lemons themselves, limes, as well as orange and petitgrain (the flower of the bitter orange). Citral is pure ‘freshness’, and used for that effect. (It also helps to develop rose notes, in soap-making.)
Unfortunately, the downside of citral is that it can lead to sensivities and allergies – so IFRA (the International Fragrance Association) regulates that it has to be used only with other ingredients that prevent a sensitising effect, and insist it’s labelled. (Hence citral is one of the few perfume ingredients you may see listed on the box your scent’s packaged in). Another note of warning: in its purest commercial form, citral can paralyse the nose for several hours, making it impossible to smell anything at all.
Wisteria
Captured in a bottle, wisteria’s as lush and beautiful as when it scampers up the outside of a house or over a pergola, garlanding them with multi-flowered, hanging ‘racemes’. There’s a touch of lilac about this feminine perfume note – but a slightly spicy undertone that adds intrigue, at the same time, reminiscent of the cloviness of carnation.
Smell wisteria in:
Versace Versace
Immortelle
Several names for this: Curry Plant, Herb of St. John, Immortelle (which you might know from a L’Occitane skincare range) - and botanically, Helichrysum angustifolium. (We also list this ingredient under ‘E’, for Everlasting Flower’) All refer to small herb, which somehow manages to thrive in the most inhospitable, rocky, sun-baked zones in southern Europe; its yellow flowers stay incredibly bright, even after they’ve been dried. Amazingly, this grey-leafed toughie gives off a lovely, almost straw-like sweet scent, with hints of honey, tea, rose and chamomile - giving a flowery sweetness to perfumes…
Smell immortelle in:
Goutal Paris Sables
Cannabis
As a perfume ingredient, cannabis has been in the news recently as a controversial ingredient in actor Richard E. Grant’s debut scent. This native of Central and South Asia, a relative of hops, is now probably grown in every country of the world (albeit quite often in attics under gro-lights). Most famous as a recreational drug, the fibres of the plant can be woven into tough cloth – hemp – and every part of the flower is edible: hemp seed oil is highly nutritious, and great for skin, too (internally and externally). But although cannabis has a famously strong, aromatic, herbal, sometimes nutty or grassy vibe (and occasionally ‘skunky’ and animalic, even), it’s probably present in fragrances more for its shock/publicity factor than for any genuine narcotic quality it brings. (Though it can help to accent other herbal elements of a composition.)
Smell cannabis in:
Carolina Herrera Bad Boy
Malin + Goetz Cannabis
Opium
Naughty, naughty, naughty. When you see opium listed as a fragrance note, it implies something mischievous and mysterious about the perfume itself. Since ancient times, the opium poppy has been regarded as a symbol of nocturnal decadence, intrigue – but also, with healing powers. It’s been used in ritual at least since the Stone Age (stoned age?), and Egyptian, Roman, Persian, Chinese, Greek and Arab empires have also used it made ceremonial, medicinal and culinary use of opium poppies. It only began to get a bad name during the 16th and 17th Century, with poets and authors among those who fell for opium’s narcotic charms. Not surprisingly, in perfumery it’s use to ‘hypnotic’ effect: a powdery, floral note that works beautifully in Ambrée compositions.
Smell opium in:
Water lily
Water lily, as a perfume ingredient, is a little like lily ‘lite’. Same sweetness – but more subtle. Sensual, for sure, but again, with a more delicate touch. Certainly as elegant as a traditional lily,– but with a more ‘see-through’ and yes, watery quality. Altogether pretty, airy, feminine – rather than va-va-voom sexy.
Water lilies – Nymphea – get their name from Greek mythology, from the nymphs who played in springs or pools. They like slow-moving or still water: lakes, or the edges of rivers, and there are dozens of different varieties – all beautiful, and all short-lived: each flower blooms, closes at night, and lasts for just a few days. Nymphea odorata is the scented variety, and the one we’re interested in for fragrant purposes – though other types have a use in traditional herbal medicine: for hair loss, skin diseases, headache and palpitations. Certainly a note that makes our heart beat a little faster, when we smell it.
Smell water lily in:
Amouage Ciel Pour Femme
Chanel Allure
Givenchy Ange Ou Demon Le Secret
Kenzo L’Eau Par Kenzo
Versace Yellow Diamond
Kephalis
A modern synthetic note created by Givaudan, who – behind-the-scenes – create countless fragrances for the perfume world. It’s warm, rich, woody-ambery, adding a swirl of amber sweetness and hint-of-tobacco to fragrances. Kephalis is very versatile, a useful weapon in a perfumer’s arsenal, blending beautifully with floral notes such as rose, violet, lavender, jasmine – but also enhancing amber, woody and tobacco scents, to very sophisticated effect.
Smell Kephalis in:
Lalique Encre Noir
Hay
A hay meadow in a bottle? There are a few scents, yes, which capture the sweet, grassy, earthy warmth of hay, which also has almost animalic qualities. (Think: barns…) It’s not the actual essence-of-dried-pasture – used to feed cattle, horses, goats and sheep – that you’ll smell in a perfume bottle, however: hay notes are created synthetically - yet they’re no less glorious for that… (Do also read about coumarin, here: it’s another, quite similar synthetic, which gives us the scent of new-mown grass…)
Smell hay in:
Frederic Malle Bigarade Concentrée
Frederic Malle Cologne Bigarade
Miller Harris Jasmin Vert
Pear
Pear’s so crisp and clean a note, you can almost hear it ‘crunch’. Subtler and ‘greener’ than many fruits, we’d say it was almost made to be garlanded by white flowers, for a spring-like touch.
Pears themselves are a fruit-bowl staple today (though only really satisfying when truly in season, we’d say). And a little background: pear seems to have originated in western Europe, North Africa and eastwards, across Asia. The tree probably gets its name from the Latin ‘pira’.
Pear’s fragrant bounty doesn’t begin and end with its fruits (and subtly powdery blossoms), though. It’s one of the most desirable firewoods, producing a highly aromatic smoke that’s brilliant for smoking meat and tobacco – and which perfumers seek to capture and recreate, quite aside from the delicate crispness of the plant’s much better-known fruit.
Smell pear in:
Issey Miyake Pleats Please
Jimmy Choo Jimmy Choo
Lancôme La Vie Est Belle
Yardley Royal Diamond
Iris
Perfumers, in their wisdom, refer to it as orris – but by whichever name, iris/orris is one of the priciest – and most important – perfume ingredients, worldwide.
Production of this beautiful powdery, soft, floral, elegant note requires great patience – hence the hefty price-tag. It’s the rhizomes, or gnarly roots, of iris which must be left for three to five years to mature. (Time is money, in perfumery.) They’re then steam-distilled to produce a gloopy, oily yellow compound, known in the business as ‘iris butter’. This powerful oil can then be played with by perfumers, who use it as an ultra-feminine heart note. (Recently, iris has become distinctly fashionable as a fragrance ingredient.)
The perennial lant itself, of course, is gorgeous: tall, with blowsy short-lived flowers that come in a rainbow of shades. In perfumery, the most useful iris plants are Iris Pallida (mauve in colour), Iris Germanica (strong purple) and Iris Florentina (white flowers). According to romantic legend, the name ‘Iris’ comes from the Greek ‘rainbow goddess’ Irida, who used a rainbow to slide from sky to earth, bringing the will of the Olympic Gods to share with mere mortals. Where she touched the ground, beautiful iris flowers grew out of her footprints. Today, iris plants happily grow everywhere from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and north Africa.
But as the stories behind fragrance ingredients go, they surely don’t come much more romantic than that…
Smell Iris in:
Prada Les Infusions de Prada Iris
Prada Les Infusions de Prada Iris Cèdre
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile
Orris root
A hugely precious ingredient, this – with a heart-stopping price-tag. That’s because the orris – from the rhizomes, or ‘bulbs’ of the iris plant – are odourless when harvested, and take three or four years to mature. (They’re left in a cool, dry place, and need protection against fungus and insect attack which would destroy the producer’s valuable harvest.)
Iris, or orris, has lent its sweetness to perfumery for centuries – as far back as Ancient Rome and Greece, or perhaps even beyond. Back then, it was made into hair and face powders, placed into pomanders, and was the basis for delicious perfumed sachets for wearing on the body. (An idea we’d rather like to see revived...) Iris has long been a symbol of majesty and power, too.
The most sought-after type of orris come from the Iris pallida variety, which flourishes in the warmth of the Mediterranean. Florentine iris ticks perfumers’ boxes, too. After those rhizomes have aged, they’re powdered – and then steam-distilled, producing orris oil, which solidifies into something known as ‘orris butter’ (or ‘orris concrete’), because of its oily, yellow texture and appearance.
It's been highly fashionable in fragrances for the past few years: sweet, soft, powdery, suede-like – rather like violets, which we tend to be more familiar with as a scent. Actually, iris runs the spectrum from sweet to earthy: it also works brilliantly to ‘fix’ other ingredients, giving a more lasting quality to florals and base notes. Often, only the lightest touch of orris is needed in fragrances – but ‘noses’ wouldn’t be without it, for the world.
Smell orris root in:
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile
Chanel Les Exclusifs 28 La Paula
Frederic Malle Iris Poudre
Guerlain Après l’Ondée
Guerlain Samsara
Jovoy Paris Poudre
Prada Infusion d’Iris
Yves Saint Laurent Paris
Oudh
Oudh (sometimes spelled 'oud') has become a phenomenally popular ingredient, but still divides opinion. It’s one of those ‘Marmite’ perfumery ingredients, which people either swoon over or clutch their pearls and scream while avoiding at all costs.
A key ingredient in old and new Arabic perfumery, renowned as an element within high-quality incense in Arabic, Japanese and Indian cultures, oudh has now definitively crossed over to the west. It’s rare, and seriously expensive, and even endangered: as it’s become more popular, high-quality oudh is becoming hard to source.
That’s because it takes almost forever to produce oudh, which is actually the resinous heart-wood from fast-growing evergreen trees – usually the Aquilaria tree. The agarwood is a result of a reaction to a fungal attack, which turns this usually pale and light wood into a dark, resinous wood with a distinct fragrance – a process that takes hundreds of years. From that ‘rotten’ wood, an oil is made – and then blended into perfume. The aroma of ‘natural’ oud is distinctively irresistible and attractive with bitter sweet and woody nuances: seriously earthy (and in small quantities, seriously sexy).
Collection of oudh from natural forests is now illegal under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endanged Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), but some is now beginning to be plantation grown in Vietnam.
As an alternative, perfumers have turned to synthetic oud, although trained noses will tell you that it smells plainer, woody and leathery – but without the warm, balsamic qualities. There truly is an oudh for all tastes, now!
Smell oudh in:
Cartier Les Heures Voyageuses Oud & Menthe
Floris Honey Oud
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Satin Mood
Molton Brown Mesmerising Oudh Accord & Gold
Penhaligon’s Halfeti
Strangelove deadofnight
THOO (The House of Oud) Wonderly
Olive
We’re used to slooshing this onto our salads or into our frying pans – but spritzing it onto our pulse-points? Well, yes: the fragrant use of olive goes back millennia: the early Arab perfume-makers used it as a base in many of their scented creations, and the Egyptians used it to steep jasmine blossoms, to produce a fragrant oil. Olive has had many other therapeutic benefits: as an aphrodisiac, in healing balms and creams, as sedatives and tonics. (And we’ve noticed that lately it’s having a moment in the sun in the form of olive leaf tea, packed with health-giving antioxidants.) Symbolically, olive leaves represent abundance (as well as glory) – and that’s certainly true of this Mediterranean tree, which is quite a multi-tasker in perfume-terms. The leaves, bark, fruits and flowers all offer different nuances: earthy, peppery, fruity, buttery or subtly herbal.
Smell olive in:
4160 Tuesdays The Gin Garden
Vetiver
‘A sack of potatoes’. That’s what legendary ‘nose’ Jean Kerléo told our Perfume Society co-founder Jo Fairley to close her eyes and think of, when smelling vetiver from a perfumer’s vial. And it’s so true: earthy, damp, woodsy and smoky all at the same time. Just like a hessian sack of potatoes that’s been left at the back of your grandfather’s shed, when you peel back the drawstring and b-r-e-a-t-h-e, actually.
It’s almost impossible to believe, actually, that this grounding, dry smell comes from the roots of a perennial grass – also known as Khus-khus grass - rather than a wood. Vetiveria zizanoides grows like crazy in marshy places and riverbanks in places that are drenched by high annual rainfall: countries like India, Brazil, Malaysia and the West Indies (Haitian vetiver is probably the most famous of its type). In some hot places, vetiver is woven into blinds and matting, which are not only wonderfully fragrant as the breeze wafts through them or they’re trodden underfoot: vetiver has cooling properties.
Used in perfumes since ancient times, vetiver’s more popular than ever and features very, very widely in the base of fragrances because it works brilliantly as a ‘fixative’ – and so far, nobody seems to have come up with a satisfactory synthetic alternative.
PS A relative of vetiver, Vetiveria nigritina, is also found in the Saharan areas of Africa, and is used to perfume clothes and fabrics – but it doesn’t make its way into the perfumes we wear.
Smell vetiver in:
Creed Vetiver
Frederic Malle Vetiver Extraordinaire
Guerlain Vetiver
Lancôme Hypnôse
Chanel Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore
Escentric Molecules Molecule 03
Benzaldehyde
Not much romance here, we’re afraid. Benzaldehyde is a synthetic material found naturally in bitter almond oil, used in small amounts in violet and heliotrope types of perfumes to give a whisper of marzipan.
Orange
Where would perfumery be, without orange...? The blossom of the bitter orange tree (a.k.a. neroli, when it’s extracted in a particular way) is one of the most precious scent ingredients of all. Bigarade, from the fruit of that tree, is another key ingredient in colognes, while its leaves give us petitgrain, another popular element in citrussy scents. And then there’s orange itself (sometimes referred to as sweet orange, to distinguish it from the bitter, ‘marmalade’ variety.)
Everyone knows what an orange smells like, of course: that burst of zest as you dig your fingers into the waxy skin to break into this juiciest of fruits. That ‘whoosh’ of uplifting zestiness is precisely why perfumers love to use it: as a sweet, refreshing, sadly fleeting top note, very often in colognes but also in Ambrée and fruity-floral scents. Sweet orange oil itself is harvested by cold-pressing the fresh of this fruit – which turns out to be a hybrid between the mandarin and the pomelo, which only came into existence in Europe and China in the 11th Century. The key aroma compound in sweet orange oil, meanwhile, is something called d-limonene – and it’s also a sensitiser for some people, meaning it has to be listed (albeit in the teensiest writing) on labels.
Smell orange in:
Diptyque Eau de Tarocco
Watermelon
Juicy watermelon has been quenching perfume-lovers thirst for fruity notes a lot, recently, thanks to the trend for fruity-florals. It’s summer in a bottle: very fresh, watery, sheer, but (unsurprisingly) sweet at the same time. Generally, it’s part of a cocktail of fruit notes – perhaps a dash of mango, a squirt of raspberry, a squeeze of guava…
Smell watermelon in:
Givenchy Fleur d’Interdit
Metal
Nobody grinds up metal and adds it to a perfume blend – but the genius of perfumers is that they nevertheless have a way of conjuring up hints of iron and steel in a bottle, as an evocative ‘fantasy’ note. (Sometimes, they’ll turn to synthetic iris to create that cool, almost sterile effect…)
Smell metal in:
Comme des Garçons Odeur 53
Penhaligon’s Sartorial
Quince
Quince was used by the early Arab perfumers, by the Greeks and Romans: they steeped the fruit in oil, and made a perfume from its flowers that was called ‘Melinum’. It’s pretty unusual to see quinces growing (although the Spanish do use it to make a paste, membrillo, which is served with cheese) – but they look half-way between a pear and an apple (to which it’s related). And funnily enough, the scent’s somewhere in between the two, too…
Smell quince in:
Chanel Chance Eau Tendre
Honey
Are you a honey-lover…? Then you’ll know that honey comes in so many different varieties, each taking their smell (and colour) from the flowers on which the bees that produce it have feasted. Orange blossom honey. Eucalyptus honey. Acacia honey: the variations are almost limitless, sometimes woody, flowery, herbal or even tobacco-y. The ancient Arab perfumers were the first to capture honey’s sweetness in perfumery, but today the honey featured is generally a synthetic note – one that’s drizzled sensually over quite a few fragrances in the past few years.
It’s over 15,000 years since man first harnessed bees’ busy-ness to produce this natural sweetener. (According to cave paintings in Valencia in Spain, anyway.) Symbolically, honey stands for ‘the sweet life’, prosperity, even immortality; the word itself comes from the ancient Hebrew word for ‘enchant’… When man and bee teamed together, it turned out to be a win-win situation: bees got a safe place to live (and a reliable food source, in the form of flowering crops) – and we got to harvest honey and beeswax in unbelievably impressive quantities: a single beehive can produce up to 200 kilos of honey each season.
Rich, warm, luxurious and comforting, honey works wonderfully to emphasise floral notes, or add touches of amberiness. And with the profusion of gourmand fragrances out there, honey-lovers can easily find themselves in sweet heaven. (And read here about beeswax, which also makes its way into fragrances.) We love what the nose Christine Nagel has to say about this ingredient: 'Honey has two facets - half devil, half angel. In Ambrée structures, it has a sweet, comforting effect, taking you back to childhood. But a small touch in a feminine structure can be extremely sexy...'
Smell Honey in:
Byredo M/Mink
Elie Saab Le Parfum
Estée Lauder Sensuous
Giorgio Armani Armani Code for Women
Guerlain L’Abeille de Guerlain
Guerlain Rose Barbare
Jovoy Paris Chypre
Lancôme Hypnôse Senses
Marc Jacobs Honey
Paco Rabanne Lady Million
Thierry Mugler Angel
Ambergris
Much was made, not long ago, of the discovery on a British beach of a whacking great lump of greyish-beige waxy material – which turned out to be worth thousands of pounds. That was ambergris, one of the most valuable and legendary ingredients in perfumery, prized for its ability as a fixative, to enhance a fragrance’s staying power by anchoring the more volatile ingredients, and ‘round it out’.
It’s basically whale poo. Yes, really: ambergris is produced in the digestive system of sperm whales - to make it easier for the whale to digest shard objects (like squid beaks), so it’s thought. Usually, the whale vomits these sharp bits. If not, they travel further down the gut and are covered in ambergris: a sticky, gelatinous material which dries to a lump with a resinous texture and then floats on the surface, ending up on beaches in places like South Africa, the East Indies, China, Japan, New Zealand – even Dorset. When it’s first produced, it’s useless as a fragrance ingredient - definitely faecal, at that point. As it ages, the smell matures and develops beautifully, and before it can be used perfumery, it must be diluted with alcohol.
Chemist Gunther Ohloff once described ambergris as ‘humid, earthy, faecal, marine, algoid, tobacco-like, sandalwood-like, sweet, animal, musky and radiant’. Others comment that it can smell a bit like the wood in old churches, or Brazil nuts. It’s been used in fragrance for millennia: the ancient Egyptians burned ambergris as incense, while the Chinese referred to ambergris as ‘dragon’s spittle fragrance’. During the Black Death in Europe, it was believed that carrying a ball of ambergris could prevent plague.
Wild-harvested supplies are obviously extremely erratic – and many countries have outlawed the trade of ambergris, as part of a more general ban on the exploitation and hunting of sperm whales, so ambergris tends to be created synthetically.
Although it’s called ‘grey amber’ (ambergris), it’s not to be confused with amber.
There’s an entire book dedicated to the story of ambergris: Floating Gold. Read more about it here.
NB This visual is of the painting Fumée d’Ambergris by John Singer Sargent
Smell ambergris in:
Balmain Ambre Gris
Amaretto
Amaretto on the rocks, anyone…? Well, these days you won’t only find this liqueur in a glass, but in some gourmand fragrances. It gets its name from the Italian word ‘amaro’ (for bitter) - even though the legendary alcoholic drink (lugged back home from many a Duty Free) is actually sweet and almond-y.
We rather love the story of Amaretto, which has its roots in the Saronno region of Italy (hence the name ‘Amaretto di Sironno’, on the label). Allegedly, in 1525, a Saronno church commissioned one of Leonardo da Vinci’s pupils, artist Bernardino Luini, to daub their sanctuary with frescoes. As the church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Luini needed to depict the Madonna, but was short of a model. Enter a young, widowed innkeeper, who sat for the painter – and also, it’s said, became his lover. She wanted to show her gratitude with a gift, and soaked apricot kernels in brandy, presenting the concoction to Luini. And so, Amaretto (the drink) was born.
The fragrance note itself is synthetically created, adding a touch of syrupy bitter-sweetness – most often, as we’ve said, to gourmand perfumes.
Smell Amaretto in:
Cartier Le Baiser du Dragon
Night-blooming cereus
Cereus doesn’t sound too ‘sexy’, but Queen of the Night…’? We’re half-way to falling in love with this ingredient for its exotic name, never mind the sweetly floral, vanilla-y fragrance which can be so captivating, in a perfume. This is also sometimes known as ‘The Honolulu Queen Flower’; the large, short-lived flowers of the cactus-like plant bloom for just six hours, opening in the evening and closing by dawn. Some flower just once a year, for a single night – a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pleasure that happily can be captured in a bottle and enjoyed 24/7…
Smell night blooming cereus in:
Caraway
Spicy, sweet, sharp: this garden spice – which (so legend has it) will protect from theft and stop a lover straying – adds an aromatic twist to perfumery, working well across a wide range of fragrance families including Ambrées, florientals and fougères.
Smell caraway in:
YvesSaintLaurent La Nuit se L'Homme
Tomato leaf
Everyone, surely - even the least green-fingered person - has rubbed a tomato leaf between their fingers to get that so-green, astringent, slightly bitter smell. (We know many people who say that tomato leaf is their first scent memory, perhaps introduced by a much-loved grandparent who wants to share its so-distinctive, scented furriness.) Its bittersweet freshness works well in Colognes and summer scents, when a shot of ‘green’ is called for.
Smell tomato leaf in:
Goutal Passion
Donna Karan DKNY
Angelica
Angelica is a family of beautiful, ‘umbellifer’ (or umbrella-like) plants, including Angelica archangelica: both the root and the seeds can be used (though the root’s more pungent). The natural oil is also used in the liqueur Chartreuse (with its signature bright yellow-green colour, evoking the flowers of the plant itself), while the stem can be candied.
And in perfumery? Angelica gives a musk-like, green, aromatic odour – although today, it’s also synthesised, and used as a fixative and ‘synergist’. (Which basically means it makes some other ingredients work better together).
In neo-Pagan times, angelica was used to promote healing and protect against negative energies – and we rather like the thought of dabbing some of that on…
Smell angelica in:
Creed Royal Oud
Oak
As you might imagine, a perfume ingredient extracted from one of our sturdiest trees adds a bit of ‘heft’ to a scented creation: dry, woody, grounding. But there’s also a teeny touch of vanilla to oak (synthetic vanillin, used in many baked goods and confectionery, is derived from wood shavings!), to lighten the woodiness. Interestingly, the Thierry Mugler brand now says it’s ‘ageing’ its fragrances in wood casks – an echo of the wine and spirits world…
Smell oak in:
Penhaligon’s Quercus
Cardamom
Cardamom’s been spicing up perfumery (and the incense trade) at least since Egyptian times, and was one of the key fragrance plants used in Greek perfumes. It’s pricy –the third-costliest spice in the world (after vanilla and saffron) – but so aromatic that only a touch is needed of the essential oil that’s steam-distilled from the seeds of the Elletaria cardomomum plant. (What you see in a photo is the pod: pop it open and the tiny seeds spill out.) Widely used in cooking, too, in south-east Asia – and perhaps most famously, to flavour chai - its slightly camphorous properties work to freshen breath. In fact, there are two variietes of cardamom: earthy, smoky black cardamom – and the fresher, almost minty, eucalyptus-y green cardamom. The first works perfectly in more exotic, Ambrée blends – making for something that’s almost skin-like, or suede-soft - while the aromatic green cardamom adds brightness mostly to colognes and men’s scents.
Smell cardamom in:
Dior Dolce Vita
Diptyque L’Autre
Yves Saint Laurent La Collection Nu
Redcurrant
Run your fingers over the leaves of a redcurrant bush, and you’ll get a ‘catty’ quality that’s distinctive, intriguing – but not to everyone’s taste. The fruit of Ribes rubrum itself, though, is fruity, green and tart, often incorporated into a ‘cocktail’ of fruity notes which are then woven mostly into fruity-florals: that category of perfumes whose star has been in the ascendant, in recent years – often fresh, youthful and vibrant. (Whitecurrants, which have a slightly sweeter quality – almost an ‘albino’ version of the redcurrant, and also a member of the gooseberry family – are also very occasionally used.)
Smell redcurrant in:
Goutal Quel Amour
Cartier Les Heures de Cartier L’Heure Folle X
Donna Karan DKNY Be Delicious Sparkling Apple
Grape
We eat grapes, we drink them – and sometimes, we dab or spritz a synthesised version on our pulse points. Sugary and sweet, sometimes greener and drier, the note can conjure up the smell of the popular American soft drink Kool-Aid: the same ingredients (methyl anthranilate and dimethyl anthranilate) go into both. As with many fruit ingredients, grapes are having their moment in the sun, thanks to fragrance fashion.
Smell grape in:
Yves Saint Laurent La Collection In Love Again
Grenadine
What’s a sticky, bright red syrup doing in a perfume bottle? Adding to the cocktail of perfume ingredients, that’s what, with its citrussy, tart-sweet fruitiness. Of course it’s not actual grenadine itself – which is made from pomegranate juice, cherry juice and sugar – which perfumers use: the grenadine note is generally synthetic. But – just like a real cocktail (paper parasol optional), it adds a sense of summer to fragrances.
Smell grenadine in:
Jean-Paul Gaultier Madame
Patchouli
Deep, dark, earthy and present in plenty of Ambrée perfumes, patchouli’s still got a hippie-dippy aura, even now. (It’s been called ‘the scent of the 60s’, because the essential oil was often worn neat on the skin of music-loving, party-loving – and sometimes drug-loving – youth.) So it’s always blown our minds that patchouli isn’t a wood, or a root: it’s actually a frilly green-leafed, purple-flowered member of the mint family, called Pogostemon patchouli.
Amazingly, from those fragile-looking leaves comes a sweet, spicy, smoky, cedar-y scent so powerful it has to be handled with care: patchouli is the most powerful of any plant-derived essence. But perfumers wouldn’t be without patchouli, for the richness that it gives to fragrances – and not just those heady Ambrées: patchouli makes its way into many chypre and powdery fragrances, swirling exotically alongside lavender, sandalwood, labdanum and bergamot, clove, clary sage, as well as vetiver. (It’s a little like vetiver, if you close your eyes.) Used alongside rose, it extends and ‘fixes’ rose’s sweetness.
The name, quite simply, comes from the old Tamil words patchai (‘green’) and ellai (‘leaf’). It originated in India, Malaysia and Indonesia and made its way to the Middle East via the exotic silk route: patchouli is a fantastic insect repellent, effective against flies and other bugs. (We’re going to try it out on our cashmere, and will report back.) Paisley shawls were traditionally layered with patchouli leaves in transit. Frenchwomen in the 19th Century swathed themselves in these patchouli-scented shawls against the cold – a fashion started by the Empress Eugenie - and patchouli became desirable, as a fragrance ingredient.
The quality of the oil can vary hugely. The very best stuff comes from the three or four top pairs of leaves, where the highest concentration of the fragrant oil is found. Once cut, they’re turned frequently to prevent them breaking down too quickly. Then the leaves are stripped and placed into woven baskets, where a process of fermentation takes place that releases the incomparable fragrance. Then the leaves are either CO2-extracted, or steam-distilled. It’s highly skilled work, and only a few distilleries produce patchouli of a high enough quality to please a VIP ‘nose’, or creator. On a blotter, meanwhile, a single drop of patchouli can last for months.
For many today people, it’s still a love-it-or-hate-it ingredient, evoking plenty of prejudice. But we happen to adore it…
Smell patchouli in:
Chanel Chance
Chanel Coco Mademoiselle
Givenchy Very Irresistible L’Intense
Jovoy Psychédelique
Cartier L’Heure Defendue VII
L’Artisan Parfumeur Patch
Thierry Mugler Angel
Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb
Belladonna
Deadly nightshade. How mysterious is that, as a fragrant ingredient? In nature, of course, it’s toxic: the Atropa belladonna plant can kill. In perfume, it features as a ‘fantasy’ note, to conjure up mystery and danger. Belladonna gets its name from the Italian, belle donna (‘beautiful woman’): when consumed in small quantities, it opens the pupils, enhancing a woman’s attractiveness, and it has a long tradition of use as a medicine, cosmetic, and recreational hallucinogen (in small doses). The poisonous, hallucinogenic black berries are what we’re most familiar with (and warned about, as kids). Preceding the berries come green-and-purple-tinged bell-shaped flowers which do offer up a delicate scent – but the sweet, subtly floral belladonna note used in fragrances is generally synthetic. And - we suspect – is used to give an aura of magic, dark mystery and allure to perfume, rather than for the perfume itself. That's really confirmed by perfumer Julie Massé, who based whole fragrance around Atropa belladonna - called (yes!) Atropa Belladonna. 'Of course there isn't literally any deadly nightshade in the fragrance - but the overall effect of the perfume I created is deep, intense, intoxicating...'
Smell belladonna in:
Blackcurrant
Perfumers use notes from two stages of blackcurrant’s life: the blossom, and the fruit itself, both from the Ribes nigrum plant. Gardeners cultivate these widely, albeit most successfully inside fruit cages – because birds, as well as humans, just love the perfectly-ripened fruit… The distilled absolute of the blackcurrant buds and leaves is known as bourgeons de cassis (say it ‘boor-shon da cassee’): a light, fruity, woody note with a slightly animalic edge. (Blackcurrant leaves can smell a little ‘catty’ when you rub them between your finger – though in a fragrance, that won’t be apparent.) With its tart/sweetness, meanwhile, the blackcurrant berry is a popular ingredient in today’s fruity-florals. The most celebrated use of bourgeons de cassis has been in Guerlain’s 1969 perfume, Chamade.
Says 'nose' Julie Massé: 'I use cassis to give a delicious, moreish touch. It can "lift" white flowers, but also - in partnership with woods or amber - can create roundness and depth.'
Smell blackcurrant in:
Guerlain Chamade
Van Cleef & Arpels First
Carnation
‘Supermarket’ and ‘garage forecourt’ carnations are mostly a huge disappointment because the spicy, clove-y smell you get when burying your nose in a garden-picked bloom is generally missing. Actually, it’s a flower closer to the cottage garden ‘pink’ – similar to the variety so loved by British gardeners, and known as ‘clove-pink’ – which is used in perfumery. (Carnation absolute is only produced in the south of France, though.)
Unpick the chemical structure of this plant and you’ll find it’s incredibly rich in an aroma compound called eugenol - so quite often, what you smell in a perfume hasn’t come from a plant at all, but has been synthesised. The price of the natural ingredient probably doesn’t help: it takes 500 kilos of flowers to produce one kilo of ‘concrete’, and about one-tenth that quantity of absolute.
Once upon a time (in the Victorian/Edwardian era), carnation was hugely fashionable (and if you ever manage to get your hands on a bottle of Caron’s now-extinct Bellodgia, you can experience just why it was so beloved). Now it has a somewhat old-fashioned, great-aunt-ish image, which means carnation tends to be consigned the chorus of a perfume rather than placed in the spotlight. Nonetheless, this piquant spicy flower is a cornerstone of many, many Ambrée perfumes, adding a delicious, almost nose-tingling brightness, and complementing the floral notes: carnation and rose, in particular, were just made for each other.
Smell carnation in:
Balenciaga Florabotanica
Floris Malmaison
Miller Harris Fleur Ambrée
Prada Prada Amber
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Brown sugar
As you’d imagine, brown sugar adds sweetness to our perfumes in just the same way as it does to cereals, cakes, candies. Sugar was once a precious commodity, a delicacy. Now, as we know, it’s in countless foods, and most of us have a love-hate relationship with the stuff. But perfume-wise, sugar’s star is in the ascendant in line with the boom in gourmand compositions, adding almost a touch of ‘booziness’. Great with vanilla. (Just like in baking.) But with zero calories…
Smell brown sugar in:
Penhaligon's Equinox Bloom
Jatamansi
In common with many contemporary fragrance ingredients, jatamansi – or spikenard, to give it a more familiar name – was originally used in incense, as an element of sacred Roman, Indian, Hebrew and Egyptian ceremonies. With its slightly musky, woody, aromatic, earthy, warm and sensual scent, jatamansi also featured in body oils and unguents, in Roman times…
It’s the roots of this perennial plant – a flowering member of the valerian family – which are used in perfumery, as well as in natural medicine and in aromatherapy, to soothe stress and anxiety. The plant valiantly grows in mountain areas above 3,500 metres, in countries like India, Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. In fragrances, though, it works brilliantly as a fixative, and in chypre and Ambrée scents: it complements oakmoss, lavender, vetiver, lemon and spice. To paraphrase Shakespeare, jatamansi by another name would smell as sweet – and it’s got plenty of those other names: nard, spike, muskroot, tapaswini and sumbul are just some of the other words used for this ingredient.
However, because it’s increasingly rare, the prices have – um – spiked, putting it beyond the reach of many contemporary perfumes. (Although L’Artisan Parfumeur built a whole fragrant collection around it…)
Smell jatamansi in:
L’Artisan Parfumeur Jatamansi
Myrrh
Famously, myrrh was one of the three gifts brought to the infant Jesus by the Three Kings. But long before that, myrrh was among the very first perfume ingredients used in prayer – as well as perfumery itself: as far back as 3,700 years ago, priests and believers believed that the smoke of incense was the only thing which could cross the barrier between earth and heaven. (Leading to the original name for perfume: per fumum, or ‘through smoke’…) Myrrh was a key ingredient in the ancient incense kyphi, used to fumigate ancient Egyptian temples. Then later, it was ‘discovered’ by (and became popular with) Greek and Roman perfumers.
What is it? A gum resin, tapped from the True Myrrh tree, or Commiphora Myrrha which originates from parts of Arabia, Somalia and Ethiopia; the resin’s produced by tapping the tree to make small incisions, from which small teardrop-shaped droplets emerge – and are left to harden into bead-like nuggets, which are then steam-distilled to produce an essential oil.
Myrrh gets its name from the Hebrew ‘murr’ or ‘maror’, which translates as ‘bitter’. It’s earthy. It’s resinous. It’s intriguing. And it’s still a key ingredient in many sensual and iconic Ambrée perfumes today…
Smell myrrh in:
Amouage Amouage Gold pour Femme
Caron Parfum Sacre
Dior Bois d’Argent
Diptyque L’Eau Trois
Guerlain Myrre et Délires
Jovoy La Liturgie des Heures
L’Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu
Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Geraniol
Get out your magnifying glass. Look at the label on your perfume. The word ‘geraniol’ may be written there, as this is one of the perfume ingredients known to trigger sensitivity, in some people – so it’s there as a warning. (Doesn’t mean it will. Just that it can. Maybe. Sometimes.) It’s actually a natural aroma chemical found in roses, but also citronella, geranium, palmarosa, petitgrain, eucalyptus. Geraniol’s used in perfumery to ‘extend’ the scent of roses, bringing sheer, floral freshness to blends.
Cinnamomum cassia
It smells like cinnamon. (Actually, it tastes like cinnamon too.) It looks like cinnamon. Cinnamomum cassia even has cinnamon in its botanical name, and is known sometimes as ‘Chinese cinnamon’, or even ‘false cinnamon’. Both were among the most popular perfume ingredients of ancient times, referred to as far back as ancient Egyptian unguent recipes. (Although some scholars – and we’re really not qualified to argue – think that the cassia plant of old is inferior to the one still used today in teas, ointments and perfumery.) The twigs, buds and foliage of this 3-metre tree can be steam-distilled – but cassia is sometimes recreated synthetically, giving a potent and seriously spicy, almost earthy note that when handled with care lends itself especially well to Ambrées.
Smell cinnamomum cassia in:
Cacharel Lou Lou
Cedarwood
Do you remember the smell of your school pencil case? That’s really the smell of cedar, which is of course also the wood used for pencils. Of course it smells woody, but that’s just too simple: it also has a freshness, with hints of resin. If you’ve ever walked in an evergreen forest, cedar will transport you back there, too. It’s mostly the foliage (from trees grown in the Atlas mountains of Morocco, or Virginia in the USA) that is steam-distilled to produce the intense oil, which is also used in aromatherapy for calming and balancing. Sometimes, the roots and the wood of this slow-growing tree are used, putting some environmental question marks over its use today. Partly for that reason, there are now quite a few cedar-like synthetic notes used to give depth and a ‘grounding’ quality across some women’s fragrances – and many men’s.
As 'nose' Christine Nagel explains, cedar wood can be used to different effect. 'Virginian cedar has a dry and almost "nervous" effect in a fragrance, whereas cedar wood from the Atlas Mountains is much warmer...'
Smell cedarwood in:
Woods of Windsor Cedarwoods
Miller Harris Le Cèdre
Gooseberry
The rise (and rise) of fruity scents has given a new lease of life to this fruit, once reserved for the pudding course and jam-making. The hairy-skinned green or red fruit add a tart, prettily fruity edge to fragrances – mostly fruity-florals.
Smell gooseberry in
Stephanotis
The waxy flowers of this tender twining shrub – also known as Madagascar Jasmine or Creeping Tuberose – are traditionally used in wedding bouquets and headdresses: romantic, sweet, and (yes) a little like tuberose and jasmine. Stephanotis generally appears as part of a bigger bouquet of blowsy, hypnotic white florals.
Smell stephanotis in:
Ambrette
Musky, slightly sweet – and maybe a hint of Cognac in there…? That’s what you’ll get when you smell ambrette, an aromatic medicinal plant (musk mallow) which is native to India and used particularly in Ayurvedic medicine. (The shoots, leaves and seeds are also used in cooking, while ambrette flowers are sometimes used to add scent and flavour to tobacco). It was for a time the perfumer’s choice for replacing animal musks, although it’s gentler and not as sharp. But nowadays, synthetic musks have widely replaced ambrette, on grounds of its priciness.
Smell ambrette in:
Penhaligon's Tralala
Rosemary
Pungent, lavender-like, aromatic: nothing smells quite like rosemary. (Well, camphor and eucalyptus and even mint smell a little bit like rosemary - but most of us could still make out its distinctive ‘whoosh’ if blindfolded). Julie Massé, whose many fragrance creations include Shay & Blue's portfolio, explains: 'I use it to give a Mediterranean sensation - to create the impression of a cocktail of herbs...'
Because of those herby qualities, rosemary’s used with only the lightest touch in female perfumes, though more widely in so-called ‘men’s scents’. Its use actually goes way, way back: the Ancient Greeks burned rosemary as incense, and it became part of religious ceremony (and even exorcisms): the smoke of rosemary is deeply cleansing. Rosemary wasn’t known to the Arab perfumers, but it started to be distilled as an oil in the 15th Century, and was a key ingredient in one of the first ‘modern’ perfumes, Hungary Water.
A woody evergreen, rosemary has super-fragrant needle-like leaves, and white, purple, blue or pink flowers, depending on the variety. It’s seriously low-maintenance: the name ‘rosemary’ comes from the Latin for ‘dew’ (ros) and ‘sea’ (marinus), because all it needs is the humidity of a sea breeze to flourish. Today, no home herb garden’s complete without rosemary – which was once planted to repel witches. This somehow led to the idea that where rosemary grew outside a house, it symbolised that a woman ruled the household. (And around the time of the 16th Century, not a few men could apparently be found ripping out rosemary bushes to show that they, not their wives, were boss.)
It’s also said to be good for memory (as well as for stimulating hair growth), and is used symbolically in weddings, funerals and war commemorations in the UK and Australia: ‘Rosemary for remembrance’.
Smell rosemary in:
Dior La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Granville
Diptyque L’Eau de Hesperides
Guerlain Jicky
Lancôme O de Lancôme
Miller Harris Fleur de Sel
Yardley English Lavender
Aluminium
What is ‘eau de saucepan’ (or aeroplane wing) doing in fragrance? Well, recently, the third most abundant metal on earth has made an appearance – mostly in men’s perfumery, so far – to add a cooling, metal edge, for instance in the Blood Concept fragrances, but also Creed’s Acier Aluminium, which was inspired (so they put it) by the chain mail worn by medieval knights.
Naturally, it’s a synthetic ‘fantasy’ ingredient: you can’t distil a metal, or extract it through enfleurage…!
Smell aluminium in:
Creed Acier Aluminium
Driftwood
It’s the image of driftwood that this note really evokes – visions of saltiness, seaside, water and lightness. (There’s a touch of mustiness if you smell a driftwood note ‘neat’ from the vial, which perfumers can cleverly round out with other ingredients.) Mostly, this evocative note – conjuring up images of sculptural wood cast ashore by stormy seas, and bleached by the sun – makes its way into men’s fragrances, or light, beach-inspired summery colognes.
Smell driftwood in:
Marc Jacobs DOT
Eucalyptus
Koalas love it. So do we. Steam-extracted from the leaves of a family of super-fast-growing trees and shrubs native to Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania – over 500 different varieties – eucalyptus can add an airiness to perfumes, with its green, camphor-y, lemon-ish facets. It’s challenging to perfumers, though: eucalyptus is so powerful that it can rapidly overwhelm a scented construction and deteriorate into ‘hint-of-mothball’... In aromatherapy - where it’s the ‘therapy’ that counts, rather than the ‘aroma’ -it’s widely used; it’s just brilliant for coughs and wheezes. (Beware, though: neat eucalyptus oil should be kept away from babies and small children, and avoided by those who suffer from asthma. Actual fragrances with hints of eucalyptus, however, shouldn’t cause any problems.)
Smell eucalyptus in:
Frederic Malle Carnal Flower
Yardley English Lavender
Peony
There’s something about the voluptuous but fragile beauty of peonies that makes them truly evocative and sensual, as a perfume ingredient. In China and Japan, it’s a national emblem and known as ‘the king of the flowers’. Closer to home, in mythology, mischievous nymphs were believed to hide in the petals of peony, giving it the meaning of bashfulness, shyness or shame, in the language of flowers.
Plants take from five to seven years to flower abundantly, with up to 60 flowers on a single plant – but that makes for a pricy ingredient. Through history, peony was known for its medicinal powers, and in Traditional Chinese Medicine it’s still used to treat night sweats, injuries and stomach pains.
In fragrance, though, peony is a fresh, soft floral note: uplifting, calming, working brilliantly alongside other floral notes, especially the equally delicately-petalled rose.
Smell peony in:
Goutal Quel Amour
Chanel Eau de Parfum
Dior Dune
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia
Penhaligon’s Peoneve
Versace Crystal Noir
Elder
It takes a lot of elderflower to produce a little essential oil – so this note is usually recreated synthetically, to evoke that sweet, honey-like, floral-herby scent of this hedgerow plant. The Sambucus nigra flowers – white, frothy, umbrella-like – actually go much further when they’re used for making drinks (elderflower’s a popular cordial). They’re also often left to produce fruit, which can be infused to extract an intense berry scent. Mostly, though, when you see elder listed as an ingredient, that’ll be a synthetic version.
Tea
Smell tea in:
Bulgari Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert
Bulgari Mon Jasmin Noir L’Eau Exquise
L’Artisan Parfumeur Thé Pour Un Eté
Lancôme Aroma Tonic
Black pepper
Black pepper’s variously referred to as ‘the King of Spices’, or even black gold, and it’s been traded since the Roman empire, when the ‘spice routes’ to China and India opened up. (Literally, it was a medium of exchange, a form of money.) Everyone knows black pepper as a food ingredient: it now spices up meals all over the world - it's actually the most widely-used spice on the planet. (That’s because it also helps digestion, as well as enhancing flavours.)
This flowering vine was originally native to the south of India, where it’s long been used in Ayurvedic medicine. Once upon a time, black pepper’s value was on a par with gold – hence the nickname – and only the rich could enjoy it. (Not only was black pepper ground onto food, though: it found its way into spells and was used as an amulet to protect against disease and other threats.)
In perfumery, the not-quite-ripe peppercorns of the Piper nigrum vine are dried, crushed and steam-distilled to create an intensely-fragrant oil which is surprisingly complex: as well as delivering a burst of heat, it’s surprisingly fresh – and woody, too, blending beautifully with citrus fruits like lemon, as well as aromatics including lavender, ginger, clove, coriander and geranium. We love the idea that (as fragrance writer Mandy Aftel puts it), black pepper isn’t just thought to stimulate the mind, but to ‘warm the indifferent heart’…
Perfumer Andy Tauer tells us he's still experimenting with it, as an ingredient. 'So far, I have used black pepper only once in my perfumes - together with a bundle of citrus and vetiver. This combo is unbeatable. The brightness and sparkling fuzziness of citrus, the damp woody, earthy brown vetiver and the sharpness of pepper fit like Coke, fries and burger. Pepper, is metallic and spiky, sharp. But compared to cardamom it is actually easier to handle - like a poodle compared to a bull dog. Both are lovely, but the poodle mostly just hops and jumps.'
Smell black pepper in:
Argentum Magician
Diptyque Ofresia
Kingdom Scotland Metamorphic
Molton Brown Re-charge Black Pepper
Tonka
As perfumer Alienor Massenet explains, 'tonka is warm and smooth - but unlike vanilla, it can remind you of hay. I love to use it because it's big and powerful, very sensual. Used with an amber note, it creates a real addiction…' And Dior's Perfumer-Creator François Demachy adds: 'The tonka bean is a concentrate of sensations and aromas. It is dual, it has a multifarious seduction. Its milky sweetness invariably attracts. But it also reveals a soft yet surprising bitterness, when you taste it.'
Smell tonka in:
Bulgari Jasmin Noir
Chanel Coco
Chanel Coco Mademoiselle
Dior La Collection Privée Fève Délicieuse
Dior Addict
Dior J’Adore L’Or
Givenchy Ange ou Demon
Guerlain Shalimar
Guerlain Elixir Charnel Ambrée Brulant
Guerlain Samsara
Guerlain Tonka Impériale
Liz Earle Botanical Essence No. 15
Thierry Mugler Angel
Yves Saint Laurent Manifesto
Petitgrain
Petit-what? Petigrain. (Say it ‘petty-gran’.) You may not know the name – but you’ve certainly smelled this key ingredient in fresh fragrances, and especially Colognes – something of the sweetness of neroli (orange blossom) - but also woody, fresh, green and maybe a touch bitter, with a slightly masculine edge.
The bounteous bitter orange plant – where would perfumery be without it? – gives us petitgrain, but in this case it’s mostly the leaves and twigs from which the oil is extracted. Once upon a time, green unripe oranges – just the size of cherries – were also a source of petitgrain, hence the name (it translates as ‘little grains’). When the leaves and twigs are distilled alongside the flowers, you have what’s referred to as ‘petitgrain sur le fleur’.
There are a couple of ‘twists’ on petitgrain: a form known as ‘citronnier’ is distilled from the leaves of the lemon tree, in Mediterranean areas; as you’d imagine, it’s more – yes – lemony. And the mandarin tree gives us ‘mandarin petitgrain’, with a thyme-like scent. Today, most petitgrain production’s centred in France, Italy and Paraguay, with some in North Africa. And as with wine, petitgrain’s affected by the terroir, or the soil and conditions it’s grown in, with each crop having a subtly different scent.
All types of petitgrain contain aroma compounds known as geraniol and linalool that are known to trigger sensitivity in some people, so are listed on perfume packaging. Most of us are unaffected though, able to delight in the fresh, spirited joy of petitgrain’s citrus pleasures.
Smell petitgrain in:
L’Artisan Parfumeur Fleur d’Oranger
L’Artisan Parfumeur Seville a L’Aube
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Amyris Femme
Miller Harris Cologne 1888
Dandelion
Gardeners everywhere probably wish that every dandelion on the planet could be weeded out and imprisoned in a perfume bottle. Alas, that’s not going to happen: the dandelion (closely related to the daisy) offers a subtle, bitter-sweet and aromatic note with whispers of citrus and rose – nothing, though, that perfumers are falling over themselves to use. Just like daisies, the yellow flowers open at daybreak, and bed down for the night.
Smell dandelion in:
Shay & Blue Dandelion Fig
Magnolia
Magnolia is one of those blowsy white floral ingredients that perfumers just love, love, love: creamily sweet, but with a fresh edge to its petal power. Unlike rose or jasmine, which are more familiar, you may never have smelled a magnolia up close – but this family of flowering trees is worth sniffing out, especially the Magnolia grandiflorum variety.
There are around 200 different types of magnolia (named after a renowned French botanist, Pierre Magnol, who came up with the concept of classifying flora into ‘plant families’).
Magnolias originate in both Asia and the Americas, and are thought to be one of the most ancient flowering plants, dating back to prehistoric times: it’s quite a thought that dinosaurs would have seen magnolias blossom... (Though they wouldn’t have been able to dab magnolia on their pulse-points, of course…)
Sometimes, magnolia’s given a starring role in a scent – but it’s there in many a white floral…
Smell magnolia in:
Acqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile
Creed Love in White
Dior Dolce Vita
Donna Karan DKNY Be Delicious
Guerlain L’Instant de Guerlain Eau de Toilette
Lancôme Miracle Intense
Papyrus
Say ‘papyrus’ and you probably think of an ancient form of paper, crafted from this member of the sedge (grass) family as an alternative to using wood (its botanical name is Cyperus papyrus). Abundant on the banks of the Nile and in the marshes around the river, its use goes back to the time of the ancient Egyptians: some scrolls still survive from that time, and are still being deciphered by archaeologists. But papyrus’s history isn’t just long, though: it’s fragrant. It can smell aromatic or woody, a little dry, earthy and spicy. And though it’s more popular in Indian perfumes, papyrus can still be enjoyed in some stunning contemporary scents.
Smell papyrus in:
Juliette Has a Gun Midnight Oud
L’Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu
Miller Harris La Fumée
Citron
Citron is French for lemon. But a citron fruit (Citrus medica) is rarer than a lemon – and not nearly so juicy. It’s generally the (antiseptic) essential oil from the leathery, knobbly rind of citron which makes its way into zesty Colognes and as a richly fragrant top note in some perfumes, adding a dry citrus edge.
Smell citron in:
Atelier Cologne Vanille Incensée
Goutal Eau d’Hadrien
Linalool
Linalool is a fragrance compound found in rosewood oil and other essential oils, including petitgrain, coriander and lavender. Its spicy-floral character works perfectly in many different florals – though in small quantities; a known sensitiser for a very small percentage of wearers, it’s one of the ingredients which perfume houses must compulsorily list on a label.
Bamboo
We all know bamboo. Pandas love it. In the garden, it grows like wildfire and can be invasive (bamboo’s one of the fastest-growing plants on earth). But in perfumery – where it’s surprisingly widely-used - it’s woody, dry, green and almost paper-like, used to conjure up nature in both feminine and masculine fragrances. Bamboo is of course also linked with Asian culture: it’s the Chinese symbol of longevity, while in India it’s a symbol of friendship.
Smell bamboo in:
Byredo Mister Marvelous Eau de Cologne
Pomelo
Rather like grapefruit, its near-relation, pomelo is a brilliant, vibrant top note or heart note which adds citrussy sparkle to many perfumes, especially Colognes. Mostly, pomelos are grown in South and South-east Asia: pale green to yellow when ripe and juicy, with flesh that doesn’t have grapefruit’s bitter edge. In aromatherapy, pomelo’s used for energizing – which is exactly what it delivers in a perfume. (We think of it as cheerfulness, bottled.)
Smell pomelo in:
Donna Karan DKNY Delicious Night
Chamomile
The daisy-like chamomile isn’t one note, it’s two – because different varieties offer different nuances to a perfumer. (Confusing spellings, too: it can be spelled camomile, chamomile and camomile.) Wild chamomile, for instance, is herbal, sweet and fresh, more reminiscent of the tea we drink to calm ourselves or beckon sleep. The oil steam-distilled from German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) is more sweetly smoky, with hints of apples, working well as a base note. And Anthemis nobilis – Roman camomile, English camomile, ‘true camomile’, call it what you will – is sweet and heady, though also with an apple-iness.
Smell chamomile in:
Clive Christian V for Women
Flax
Fields of flax are heart-stoppingly – maybe even car-stoppingly – beautiful, with pale blue flowers wafting in the breeze. Perfumery isn’t the most familiar use of flax (a.k.a. Linum usitatissimum): it gives us both linen and linseed (highly nutritious, and also terrific as an oil applied to wooden furniture to keep the elements at bay). But flax has also been used in perfumery as long ago as Egyptian times, as a base note – mildly nutty in character.
Smell flax in:
Bvlgari BLV
Lemon verbena
Put a few leaves of lemon verbena, or Aloysia triphylla, in a cup, add boiling water – and you’ve an incredibly refreshing drink. Add a little lemon verbena to a fragrance, and it delivers a brisk, pure, floral-citrus scent, like bruising the fragrant leaves of this shrubby plant between your fingers.
Smell lemon verbena in:
Acqua di Parma Colonia Acqua di Parma
Goutal Paris Eau du Sud
Creed Green Irish Tweed
Creed Neroli Sauvage
Issey Miyake A Scent by Issey Miyake
L’Artisan Parfumeur L’Eau de L’Artisan
Miller Harris Terre de Bois
Fern
Cool, green, shady: we’re eternally fascinated by how perfumers use scented ingredients to give a sense of temperature, through their creations. Fern gives a cool, damp, sweet and woody feel to a fragrance – like walking into the embrace of a shady spot.
Ferns have actually given their name to an entire category of fragrances: fougère. (Say it ‘foo-jair’, with the ‘j’ a little soft – almost ‘foo-shair’.) Fougère means ‘fern-like’, in French, and the category grew from the launch of Houbigant’s Fougère Royale, in 1882. (Almost all fougère fragrances are targeted at men, by the way.)
The fern most widely used in perfumery is the Common Male Fern, which grows widely in Britain and the rest of Europe. Those frond-like leaves evoke the forest, and its damp, earthy, humus-rich floor – but actually, it’s the rhizomes (gnarly roots) from which the fern’s essential oil is extracted, using volatile solvents. Fern blends perfectly with lavender, oakmoss and coumarin, in fragrance creation.
Smell fern in:
Penhaligon's English Fern
Eugenol
Eugenol is the main element in clove essential oil – and also found in other plants, including allspice, bay, cinnamon leaf, patchouli and pimento. (Although eugenol is also produced synthetically, nowadays.) When perfumers add eugenol to a fragrance’s construction, we may actually detect a hint of spicy carnation in there.
Unusually for a perfume ingredient you’ll quite often see it listed on the back of the carton which your fragrance bottle is packaged in: eugenol’s use is now restricted in perfumery, as it’s been known to cause allergies in some people, so it must be mentioned on perfume ingredients lists to alert them.
Smell eugenol in:
Creed Love in Black
Lily of the valley
The lily of the valley is The Perfume Society’s ‘adopted’ flower: we simply love the French tradition of offering nosegays of this delicate nodding white bloom on 1st May to people you love and admire. (And we’ve adopted it ourselves.) The tradition goes back centuries – to Charles IX, who inaugurated it in 1561. Since then, lily of the valley has also made its way into countless bridal bouquets (including that of Kate Middleton for her wedding to Prince Willliam); in many countries, it’s linked to this day with tenderness, love, faith, happiness and purity.
Almost spicy, so green and sweet, with hints of lemon: that’s lily of the valley – and a more spring-like scent it’s hard to imagine. The flowers themselves are really mean with their oil, though, and synthetics are more often used to recreate lily of the valley’s magic: Lilial, Lyral and hydroxycitronellal are among them.
As well as featuring widely in ‘soliflores’ (so-called ‘single note’ fragrances, which are often actually a lot more complex than that), lily of the valley works its magic in many other fragrances, used to ‘open up’ and freshen the other floral notes in a blend – as a clever writer on the Perfume Shrine blog puts it, ‘much like we allow fresh air to come into contact with a red wine to let it “breathe” and bring out its best’.
Smell lily of the valley in:
Dior Diorissimo
Dior Hypnotic Poison
Floris Lily of the Valley
Goutal Paris Le Muguet
Guerlain Idylle
Woods of Windsor Lily of the Valley
Yardley Lily of the Valley
Lime
Zing! A top note of lime makes for the brightest and most energising of first encounters, in a fragrance – lighter and sweeter than a lemon, but at the same time more intense. 'A fantastically juicy, tart citrus note,' explained perfumer Julie Massé to The Perfume Society. 'When you smell it, you can almost feel it smarting on your tongue...'
Citrus aurantifolia is native to India, where lime’s used in Tantric rituals to ward off evil spirits from the body. Today, limes are farmed in many places (South Asia, Florida, Italy, Cuba and Mexico), and to capture a lime’s fragrant bounty a process of expression (squeezing) or distillation can be used. Just one downside to this uplifting fruit: the oil must be used with caution: anything but the teensiest squeeze can prove ‘phototoxic’, staining the skin if worn in sunlight.
Smell lime in:
Floris Limes
Mandarin
Zing! Mandarin’s zestiness is instantly cheering: sweet, fruity, citrussy, with hints of neroli – and just what perfumers often look for to ‘lift’ the overture of a scent. (Though mandarin also blends beautifully with spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and clove in perfumery – rather as it does around Christmas-time, in cooking and in our homes…)
The whole orange family is invaluable to perfumers; mandarin peel has long been used in sachets and pot pourris to scent the home. The essential oil itself is produced from the fruit’s skin: you get a hint of how this happens when you tear into a mandarin, and the oil scents your hands. (Always hoping, of course, for a really sweet, juicy mandarin – rather than the occasional disappointment of something a little tart…) In Traditional Chinese Medicine, mandarin also has an important role: it’s used to regulate qi, or ‘life-force’ – and in China itself, the fruit’s still linked with good fortune and luck.
Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays shared her thoughts with us on mandarin: 'It’s childhood Christmases for me. I’d use more of it except that citrus fruit essential oils are restricted these days, and I almost always want to get some grapefruit in there too. It has more character than sweet orange; it seems naughtier to me. It’s a special treat and it’s packed with sunshine. Oddly enough, I find that my customers describe certain synthetic fragrances as ‘fresh and natural’. Tangerine is one of the genuine natural fragrances that has the same effect. It’s light and flighty though, so it works as a top note then flits off, leaving an impression but not hanging around to be judged. Mandarin works nicely as long as you don’t mind its lack of commitment...'
Today, mandarins grow in many countries: across Italy, Sicily, Spain, Florida, Argentina, Brazil and more. The subtly different names for the fruit give a clue to their origins: Mandarin (from China), Tangerine (named after Tangier in Morocco, Clementine and Satsuma (Japan).
But by any name, this uplifting fruit is always pure joy to discover, in a scent…
Smell mandarin in:
Chanel Coco Mademoiselle
Diptyque Odeyo
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mandarine
Miller Harris Fleurs de Bois
Cinnamon
Cinnamomum verum is thought to have been an ingredient in the original holy ‘anointing oil’, mentioned in the Bible. The Greeks and Romans used it too, often with its near-relation cassia. It’s long been considered to have aphrodisiac properties, when eaten – though if spicy scents turn you on, maybe when dabbed onto pulse-points, too.
Because cinnamon bark oil is a sensitiser – and as such, you may ‘cinnamates’ on perfume packaging, as a warning – where natural cinnamon’s used, it’s likely to have been distilled from the leaves and twigs. But it’s often also synthesised, adding a spicy warmth to Ambrées (and quite a few men’s scents). Here's Andy Tauer on the restrictions on using cinnamon, which he shared with The Perfume Society - and why he loves to use it, all the same:
'Ah... a forbidden fruit, restricted by the EU and IFRA. Sensitising cinnamal, potential allergen. So warm, metallic almost, spicy of course, gourmand, hitting the nose with memories of rice pudding with cinnamon sugar, and making your saliva flow. I love to cook with cinnamon. It brings out the flavors of ginger, onions, adds warmth to the cocktail of exotic flavors from clove, pepper, cumin, fenugreek. In my perfumes, I love it - like a synthetic aldehyde - as it switches the light on, brings out the colours and contrasts. One fine day, in perfumery heaven, we will all smell and enjoy cinnamon in heavy doses: Until then, we have to life with the regulations that we have...'
Smell cinnamon in:
Dior Dioressence
Dior Dolce Vita
Dior Poison
Diptyque L’Eau
Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur
Paco Rabanne 1 Million
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Violet
Ah, sweet violets. Dainty little sweet-scented purple flowers. Flower of fertility, in ancient times – and a cure, too: garlands of violets worn around the head were thought to prevent headaches and dizziness, while in ancient Athens, they drank wine scented with violets.
But although violet has been giving up its sweetness to perfumers since the time of early Arab perfumers, who perfected a technique for distilling the oil, it was Empress Marie Louise Bonaparte who really put Viola odorata on the scent-map, establishing the violet industry in Parma which thrives to this day. Violets were Napoleon’s favourite flowers.
Violet flowers smell soft, powdery and romantic, a little like iris, and are can be played up to create a very feminine fragrance. (For more about violet leaf, though, which smells green and aquatic, click here.) Chances are, though, that the violet in your own perfume – and it probably is in your perfume, even if you can’t pick it out – is synthetic: the chemists Tiemann & Kruger as long ago as 1893 found a way to separate the aroma compounds in violets, which are known as ionones. Ionones and methyl ionones have been worked into almost every perfume worn today, and include methyl alpha ionone, which has gorgeous hints of raspberry and woods.
Perfumers have to use ionones with a light touch, though: they can actually ‘desensitise’ the nose. We like this comment from Perfume Shrine, a great scent blog: ‘When people complain “I can’t smell a thing!”, it’s not necessarily anosmia, but too much ionones!’
Smell violets in:
Goutal La Violette
Balenciaga Cristobal Balenciaga
Frederic Malle Lipstick Rose
Guerlain Insolence
Penhaligon’s La Violetta
Yardley April Violets
Blackberry
Juicy, sharp, tangy: depending on when they’re harvested, blackberries (not actually berries but fruits, BTW) can be luscious and sweet, or slightly sour. Blackberries have oozed all over fruity-florals since this fragrance category became so ‘hot’ – but their tartness can also take the edge of gourmand-sweetness: clever perfumers capture different stages of that ripeness, in perfume creations. Many of us are familiar with blackberry-picking ourselves: the Rubus fruticosus bramble tangles itself over countless hedgerows, perfect for turning into desserts, jams, jellies and even home-made wine. Now there’s an entire harvest of blackberry-garlanded scents, too.
Smell blackberry in:
Yves Saint Laurent Parisienne
Artemisia
Artemisia refers to a large family of aromatic plants – think: mugwort (‘moxa’, in Chinese medicine), tarragon and wormwood. (Wormwood gets its name from the plant’s power to treat parasites.) They’re incredibly bitter on the tongue, used to flavour vermouth and absinthe (if you’re a Martini fan, you’ll get the connection instantly). Artmesia absinthium is accordingly a very ‘green’, sharp, bitter herbaceous fragrance element; you’ll find it more usually in men’s scents, where it brings balance to floral notes.
Smell artemisia in:
Penhaligon's Artemisia
Pine
There are good pine smells, and horrid pine smells – and if you’ve ever sat in the back of a taxi with one of those ‘Christmas tree’-scented cards dangling from the rear-view mirror, you’ll probably get where we’re coming from…
But pine can also be wonderful crisp, spicy, outdoorsy and invigorating – and it’s been closely linked to perfume creation since the time of the early Arab perfumers, who liked it in combination with frankincense, in particular. (And that’ll surely open up your air passages.) The essential oil itself is distilled from the pine needles, young shoots and even sometimes the cones of this familiar evergreen, producing an oil with a refreshing woody-spiciness that conjures up Christmas like nothing else.
But if the Christmas tree’s the most familiar member of the pine family, it’s just one of 115 varieties that grow mostly in the Northern hemisphere. The wood itself is used for flooring, carpentry, for crackling log fires – but in the scented world, with only the lightest touch in actual perfumes for women, and especially men. And somewhat more heavy-handedly in home fragrance, loo cleaners – and those taxi-cab car perfumes…
Smell pine in:
Goutal Nuit Etoilée
Byredo Gypsy Water
Dior La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Granville
Frederic Malle Dans Tes Bras
Miller Harris Feuilles de Tabac
Sugar
With their sweet and vanilla-y softness, quite a few gourmand fragrances list ‘sugar’ as a note. It’s a ‘fantasy’ note, of course: as perfumer Christine Nagel explains, 'Sugar doesn't exist in perfumery - but sugary facets can be found in synthetic notes called maltol and ethyl maltol'; that sweet and caramel tone is very much used in perfumer, these days. When you're smelling a gourmand scent, then, see if you can make out either a ‘burned sugar’ caramel quality, or a candyfloss, spun-sugar airiness.
Smell sugar in:
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia
L’Artisan Parfumer Poivre Piquant
Water
Can a fragrance really smell of water? Issey Miyake would like us to think so: his iconic L’Eau d’Issey was created to conjure up the purity and clarity of water. (It was one of the first ‘juices’, or perfumes, to be almost as clear as fresh water in colour, too.) Mostly, ‘water’ in fragrance ingredient terms has come to mean an oceanic, salty/seawater vibe – which is actually recreated through the use of a complicated blend of synthetics. The idea is that ‘watery’ fragrances should actually should smell ‘breezy’, ‘outdoorsy’, like the mist that’s in the air when we take a walk on a beach with the surf crashing against the sand. (Because of course if you simply filled a bottle with water, you’d end up with something with no more of a scent than Perrier or Evian.)
Smell water (or rather ‘ozonic’ notes) in:
Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey
Geosmin
You know that so-distinctive smell when rain falls onto earth…? We’ve been known to stand there, sniffing, for the sheer pleasure of it. Of course there’s no way to capture that smell naturally, so perfumers turn to chemistry to recreate that evocative scent. It can actually be created in nature through the activity of a bacteria called Streptomyces, along with a special enzyme. But mostly, when encountered in fragrance, it’s a synthetic.
Kiwi
As with many other fruit notes, kiwi’s enjoying a moment in the sun thanks to the current fashion for fruity-floral scents. In summer scents, in particular, kiwi adds a refreshing sweetness. Kiwi fruit themselves grow on woody vines which produce incredibly dull-looking fruit (greenish-brown, fuzzy) – but slice them open and the luscious green flesh (with its corona of black, edible seeds) is revealed. This quirky fruit was originally grown in China, Japan, India and south-eastern Siberia, but has since been commercialised around the world – from New Zealand to France, via Chile and Greece.
Smell kiwi in:
Peach
Soft, fuzzy, sensual peach. No wonder perfumers love it: peach almost gives the same velvety texture to a fragrance that you get from stroking the ripe fruit itself.
Since the time of the early Arab perfumers, the flesh of peach kernels was used in scents and ointments. Originally a native of China, peaches made their way to Europe after Alexander the Great conquered the Persians and brought back a botanical trophy, Prunus persica, then known as the ‘Persian apple’.
The nectar-like aroma you smell in a ‘peach-y’ fragrance, though, may actually be a synthetic: aldehyde C14 (a.k.a. undecalactone) smells delectably peach-like and edible, and we defy most untrained noses to tell the difference.
Smell peach in:
Goutal le Mimosa
Dior J’Adore
Guerlain Elixir Charnel Chypre Fatale
Guerlain Mitsouko
Narciso Rodriguez for Her Eau de Parfum
Thierry Mugler Angel
Musk
Can a perfume roar? Can it purr? Can it be ‘sex-in-a-bottle’…? If any single ingredient can create those effects, it’s musk. As the excellent fragrance blog Perfume Posse puts it, ‘Musk speaks carnally in whispers or shouts…’ And it’s in almost every scent we dab, spritz and splash onto our skins - because at the end of the day, most of us wear perfumes to feel more alluring…
But musk does more than this. It’s incredibly versatile, in a perfumer’s hands: it softens, balances, ‘fixes’ (adds staying power and keeps a fragrance on the skin, while stopping other short-lived ingredients from disappearing too fast). It smells like skin itself. It almost hypnotises…
And it’s controversial: the original musk came from a sex gland secretion from a specific a species of deer, the Tibetan musk deer, which became endangered - though since 1979 this creature has happily now protected by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Numbers of musk deer dwindled, unsurprisingly, because it took 140 musk deer to produce a kilo of perfume ingredient. But its use goes way back: musk makes its first appearance in the 6th Century, brought from India by Greek explorers. Later, the Arabic and Byzantine perfumers (including the famous Al-Kindi) perfected the art of capturing its aphrodisiac powers, and musk’s popularity spread along the silk and spice routes.
Of course we’ll never know someone, somewhere along the way, got the idea that it would be a good idea to try this potent ingredient out in a perfume: in its raw state, musk oil smells – well, a bit like poo... And yet, and yet – at the same time, strangely intriguing… A well-known German fragrance chemist, Phliip Kraft, brilliantly captures musk’s love-it-hate-it complexity. ‘The more one studies its character that of natural musk tincture, the more contrasting, vibrant and oscillating it becomes: repulsive-attractive, chemical-warm, sweaty-balmy, acrid-waxy, earthy-powdery, fatty-chocolate-like, pungent-leathery, fig-like, dry, nutty and woody, to give just some impressions’.
It’s said that if you added drops of natural musk oil to a handkerchief, you’d still be able to smell it 40 years later. Today, of course, it’s not the natural stuff that perfumers use, but a huge array of synthetic musks, ranging from sweet, powdery musks to almost metallic versions. Vast amounts of perfume industry research dollars have gone into creating alternatives to this cornerstone ingredient: patented notes like Galaxolide, Andoxal, Nirvanolide, Celestolide, Velvione, Helvetolide, among other inventively-named creations. (We secretly long for a job naming compounds like this...!)
Other ingredients, too – like extracts of ambrette seed, galbanum and angelica root – can also deliver a musky sensuality to a perfume. Although if you have trouble smelling musk, you’re not alone: ‘anosmia’ to some - or all - musk ingredients is actually pretty common…
Smell musk (or try to!) in:
Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mûre et Musc
Miller Harris L’Air de Rien
Narciso Rodriguez Essence
Narciso Rodriguez for Her
Saffron
Add a touch to cooking, and it turns a dish bright yellow. Add a touch to a perfume, and it gives a bittersweet, leathery, intimate quality: a little bit earthy, but soft at the same time. Honeyed and hay-like are other descriptions that perfumers give to saffron, which works especially well in Ambrée-type perfumes.
The priciest of spices – known as ‘red gold’ – saffron’s one of the most ancient perfume ingredients: it was popular in Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, often as a ‘single note’ perfume, as well as in more complex blends. (The ever-extravagant Romans even strewed it over the floors of public places, to scent the air on special occasions). Saffron was also used to scent baths, houses and temples, while in medicine it was a narcotic. (Erotic postscript: in the tantric rite of the Five Essentials, saffron was applied to the female’s feet…)
The plant itself – Crocus sativus, from the iris family - was introduced into Europe in the 7th Century, after the conquest of Spain; by the 16th Century, English saffron was prized as the best in the world, grown in large quantities around Saffron Waldon (which is how come that town got its name). Today, we grow crocus in the garden – often the first herald of spring. (Without realising that the stamens of the true crocus can be used in our cooking…)
Smell saffron in:
Comme des Garçons 8 88
Diptyque L’Eau de Tarocco
Donna Karan Black Cashmere
Giorgio Armani Idole d’Armani
Givenchy Ange ou Demon
L'Artisan Parfumeur Dzing!
L’Artisan Parfumeur Safran Troublant
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud
Freesia
It’s no surprise that freesias are favourite flowers, for many of us: these delicate, multi-coloured flowers smell so radiantly sweet and airy, with an almost nose-tingling freshness – and a hint of citrus in there somewhere, too.
Yet try as they might, perfumers have never been able to capture the scent of freesias. As perfumer Alienor Massenet explains, 'Freesia in perfumery is an imaginary reconstitution - but the smell is gorgeous.' So: it’s produced synthetically, adding a hint of green sweetness – and airiness – to fragrance creations. Alienor adds: 'It's smells like tea, actually.' Freesia works perfectly to complement lily of the valley, peony, magnolia, but is rarely the shining star of a perfume itself.
Freesias get their name from a German doctor, from Kiel in Germany - Friedrich Heinrich Theodor Freese (1795-1876). A plant collector (who went by the equally glorious German name Christian Friedrich Ecklon) honoured his friend by calling the flower (which originated in Africa) ‘freesia’.
We love this quote about freesias that we first found on the perfume website Fragrantica, meanwhile.
'The happiness of that afternoon was already fixed in her mind, and always would the scent of freesia return it to her mental sight, for among the roses and violets and lilies and wall-lowers, the smell of freesia penetrated, as a melody stands out from its accompaniment, and gave her the most pleasure.' (Hugh de Sélincourt wrote that, in The Way Things Happen.)
Freesia notes contain a certain amount of linalool, which is a known sensitiser (and listed on perfume packaging as a caution to the sensitive).
Smell freesia in:
Diptyque Ofrésia
Peach blossom
Soft, floaty, feminine: this so-pretty floral note has just a whisper of actual peachy fruitiness about it. Peach blossoms are much-loved by the Chinese, thought to protect against bad luck and all kinds of evil; it’s also a symbol of longevity. Watch out for peach blossom becoming a more popular perfume ingredient, as the influence of the Middle East – which has made for so many ‘heady’ perfumes in recent years – moves East, in response to the dawning love of fragrance among the Chinese.
Smell peach blossom in:
Chanel Allure Eau de Parfum
Dior J’Adore
Guerlain Elixir Charnel Chypre Fatal
Lancôme Trésor
Cashmeran
Say ‘cashmeran’ and somehow you know it’s going to be soft, smooth, almost snuggly. There’s no cashmeran bush, or tree, or root, though: this is a synthetic ‘fantasy ingredient, also sometimes referred to as ‘blonde woods’ on perfume note ‘pyramids’. (Cashmeran™ is a trademarked ingredient from the perfumer supplier International Flavours and Fragrances, or IFF.) It’s a-little-bit-musky, a-little-bit-spicy, a-little-bit-powdery qualities become even more versatile in the hands of perfumers: they know how Cashmeran™ almost ‘melts’ into many types of ingredients to add an extra, almost tactile sensuality to perfumes within a wide range of fragrance families. Cashmeran™ also works to ‘expand’ and diffuse floral ingredients. (Lots of perfume notes work ‘synergistically’ in this way, which is why perfumery is such a complex art.)
You may also be familiar with it from body products and even fabric conditioners: Cashmeran™ ‘clings’, and doesn’t rinse out well, leaving traces of its sensuality on the skin after showering, or your bedlinen after laundry day.
Smell Cashmeran in:
Boucheron Jaïpur Bracelet
Frederick Malle Dans Tes Bras
Thierry Mugler Womanity
Narcissus
Rich, floral, green, heady: like burying your nose in springtime itself. Or as perfumer Julie Massé explains to The Perfume Society: 'An opulent sensation of green-leaf, or the hissing of hot, wet summer lawns - a strangely intense and yet cool floral.'
Narcissus has been exciting perfumers for millennia. The Arabs used it in perfumery, then the Romans, who created a perfume called Narcissinum with the oil from what’s become one of our favourite modern flowers. In India, meanwhile, narcissus one of the oils applied to the body before prayer, along with jasmine, sandalwood and rose. (Nobody’s quite sure where the first flowers were grown; some believe it originated in Persia, and made its way to China via the Silk Route.)
There are hundreds of different species of Narcissi today – white, yellow, some with a touch of pink or orange (including our ‘everyday’ daffodil) – but not all are fragrant. The Pheasant’s Eye Narcissus (a.k.a. Poet’s Narcissus, or Narcissus poeticus) is native to Europe, and growers cultivate it in the Netherlands and the Grasse area of France, extracting an oil which smells like a blend of jasmine and hyacinth.
The scent can also be extracted from the so-pretty ‘bunched’ variety – Narcissus tazetta – is native to southern Europe and now also grown widely across Asia, the Middle East, north Africa, northern India, China and Japan. A third variety, Narcissus jonquil, can also be used, and in one form or another this beautiful ingredient is said to make its way into as much as 10% of modern fragrances - despite the fact that a staggering 500 kilos of flowers are needed to produce a kilo of ‘concrete’, or just 300 g of absolue, making it very pricy.
It’s so powerful, though, that only a touch is needed – and perfumers must proceed with caution: the scent in a closed room can be overwhelming. (Narcissus actually gets its name from the Greek word ‘narke’, which made its way into Roman language as ‘narce’: that meant ‘to be numb’, and alludes to the effect the oil can have.)
The supposed Greek legend linked with the flower is well-known: Narcissus was a handsome youth who fell in love with his own reflection, on seeing it in a pool. Unable to leave behind the beauty of his image, Narcissus died – to be replaced by this flower…
Smell narcissus in:
Boucheron Boucheron
Chanel Coco Noir
Chanel No. 19
Creed White Flowers
Dior Miss Dior
Donna Karan DKNY
Givenchy Ysatis
Guerlain Samsara
Lancôme Magie Noire
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Lumière Noire Pour Femme
Miller Harris Jasmin Vert
Van Cleef & Arpels First
Tiaré
Tiaré flowers are related to gardenias: luscious white florals which scent the breeze of Tahiti, worn tucked behind the ear or as garlands. Rich and heady, tiaré is also used to create ‘monoi’ oil (familiar from many suntanning products), by macerating the flowers in coconut oil. Hypnotic, heady, almost intoxicatingly sweet, tiaré wafts its exotic way into white floral scents and Ambrées.
Smell tiaré in:
Goutal Songes
Byredo Pulp
Guerlain Terracotta Eau Sous le Vent
Beeswax
Does beeswax smell? Yes, it does: it’s honeyed, musky, softly sweet and intimate, sometimes with hints of pollen. Natural perfumers – whose palette of ingredients is limited – love it, as it delivers an ‘animalic’ quality yet is cruelty-free, generally harvested from hives that have matured over five years or so, carefully harvested by hand and then extracted using solvents. Beeswax also works brilliantly as a fixative, helping to anchor will-o’-the-wisp, volatile notes.
Smell beeswax in:
Goutal Paris Myrrhe Ardente
Syringa
‘Mock orange blossom’, it’s also known as – or Philadelphus. Oh, and also ‘German jasmine’. A well-known family of garden shrubs, syringe bursts into a froth of white flowers in late spring, filling the air with its jasmine-like sweetness – which is what perfumers capture, often alongside other white florals, but also in chypre creations. A stunner, which deserves to be better known (and more widely-used).
Smell syringa in:
Marigold
Bright, bold, stop-you-in-your-tracks orange: most of us know what marigolds look like, but the scent…? Mix bitter herbs, ripe apples and green leaves.
Marigolds – the name comes from the phrase ‘Mary’s gold’, and refers to the Virgin Mary – are members of the sunflower family, grown throughout the world. There are actually two types, which share the same ‘marigold’ umbrella name: Calendula officinalis, and Tagetes Glandulifera (the French marigold, a.k.a. Indian Carnation). Calendula blossoms, with their musky pungency, are used to produce essential oil through steam distillation; tagetes oil comes from the seeds of that plant – though in terms of what they deliver to a perfume composition, they’re pretty interchangeable.
Although marigold is more widely used in ‘men’s perfumery’, a handful of well-known feminine fragrances do feature flashes of this unusual note, for an intriguing twist…
Smell marigold in:
Boucheron Boucheron
Boronia
A really expensive fragrance material – one of the priciest in the world, in fact - boronia comes from a fragrant shrub native to Australia. Perfumer and author Mandy Aftel calls it ‘as close to heaven as we are likely to get’, telling us it’s reminiscent of raspberry, apricot, violet and yellow freesia. (Technically, boronia is a member of the citrus family.) It’s delectably intoxicating, in fragrances – and perfumers love to blend it with sandalwood, bergamot, clary sage and other floral notes. Find it mostly in chypre and fougère creations.
Smell boronia in:
Ralph Lauren Ralph
Neroli
But it’s the orgy of white neroli blossoms which get ‘noses’ really excited: airy, citrussy, green, but with whispers of honey and orange bubbling subtly underneath. It’s extracted by steam distillation of freshly-picked flowers, which must be a gorgeous task.
The name ‘neroli’ comes from a small Italian town near Rome, and a princess who lived there. Anne Marie Orsini (also known as Anna Maria de la Tremoille, and originally French), fell in love with the scent of neroli, which fragranced the air in spring. She was the first person to distil orange flowers to make essential oil, which she used to scent her clothes, baths and gloves. (Gloves and perfumery are inextricably linked, which you can read about in our Perfume History section, here.) It seems to have been something of an aphrodisiac, and kickstarted a craze among the local residents for this seductive oil, which is said to have been blended with flowery sweet notes and musk.
Long before that, though, the bitter orange tree is thought to have been brought to Europe by the Arabs from the Middle East, when the trade routes opened up. Nowadays, it’s widely cultivated: orange groves flourish from North Africa to North America, France and Italy. (The best oil, though, is said to come from Tunisia, where Jean-Paul Guerlain has his own bitter orange grove…) During the distillation process, a beautifully scented water’s also produced, which makes its way into floral waters and flavourings. And if you’re ever lucky enough to find yourself standing in a grove of these trees, it’s an unbelievably delicious, sense-drenching experience.
Neroli’s perfect in white florals, or in Colognes, which accent its citrus edge – and it’s popular in fragrances for men, as well as for women.
Smell neroli in:
Goutal Neroli
Chanel No. 5
Chanel No. 5 Eau Premiere
Chanel No. 19 Poudré
Creed Orange Spice
Diptyque L’Eau de Neroli
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio
Paco Rabanne Lady Million
Penhaligon’s Eau de Cologne
Prada Infusion de Fleur d’Oranger
Dates
Next time you’re biting into a date – that dried fruit, which conjures up images of oases, palm trees (and just possibly camels) – have a sniff, first. You’ll get a sweetness, maybe a hint of caramel, from this ‘fruit of Heaven’ as it’s known. (Dates are one of the oldest cultivated tree crops.) In perfumery, date is used as a fruitily sweet fantasy note – especially in gourmand fragrances – giving a drizzle of caramel, honeyed, buttery sweetness.
Smell dates in:
Serge Lutens Arabie
Carolina Herrera Amber Desire
Jovoy Paris L'Enfant Terrible
Bitter orange
Sometimes bitter orange is referred to ‘bigarade’ – but many of us know it best as the too-sour-to-suck-on Seville orange, used for making marmalade. The bitter orange tree is actually incredibly versatile, in perfumery: most neroli/orange blossom and petitgrain extracts come from this single tree, giving their soft/sweet/fresh qualities to countless delicious perfumes. (Petitgrain, which you can read about here, is extracted from the leaves, for instance.) But bitter orange is a fragrance note in its own right, widely used in eau de Colognes and chypre fragrances, as well as adding a whoosh of freshness to florals.
Smell bitter orange in:
Acqua di Parma Colonia Assoluta
Giorgio Armani Armani Code
Van Cleef & Arpels Cologne Noir
Fir
There are dozens of species of evergreen in the pine/fir family – and the essential oils produced by each of them have subtly different qualities. Generally, they’re wintry, balsamic, woody – conjuring up dark forests, or Christmas... In general, they lend themselves well to men’s scents, though there are some feminine examples, too.
Maison Francis Kurdijan Baccarat Rouge 540
Juniper
Think: ‘gin’. Because – as with that spirit – the juniper berry adds a bracing, exhilarating touch to fragrances. (When you smell gin, you’re basically smelling juniper, actually.) It has a touch of pine to it: a bit sappy, a touch bitter, but definitely fresh – and powerful, so it’s generally used in small doses. The berries are harvested from a small, shrub-like tree which belongs to the cypress family. It’s a harvest for patient souls: juniper berries (which can be blue, red-brown or orange) take three years to ripen, and are steam-distilled to release their pungency.
Aromatherapeutically, juniper is used for arthritis, sore muscles, poor circulation and (when sniffed) as a ‘pick-me-up’ – and as a perfume ingredient, it certainly revs up a composition. Thanks to its aromatic edge, you’re most likely to be intoxicated by it in ‘shared’ (or masculine) creations. Perfumer Christine Nagel - now working in-house for the Hermès brand - explains that juniper brings 'freshness and sharpness' to a creation...
Smell juniper in:
Cartier Les Heures de Cartier L’Heure Brilliant VI
Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling
Ginger
Bracing, uplifting and almost nose-tinglingly spicy, ginger pairs beautifully with vanilla, woody notes and citrus, as well as white flowers like jasmine and neroli. This spice is used quite widely in perfumery – as well as a wide range of foods and medicines, too, produced everywhere from South America to Malaysia, the Caribbean, Japan and Africa.
Many of us are familiar with the beige-skinned, yellow-fleshed fresh spice, which adds pungency to cooking – as the Romans, who first imported it, discovered. Those same roots we love to spice up our food with – rhizomes, to use the perfume world’s word for them – can be steam-distilled to produce this useful scented oil.
We’re generally not so familiar with the flowers – which aren’t any help to perfumers at all – but aren’t they gorgeous? (Interior decorators, as well as perfumers, also love ginger – for the sheer architecture of the plants.)
Smell ginger in:
Chanel Bois des Iles
L’Artisan Parfumeur Tea for Two
Tangerine
How did the tangerine get its name? This is, after all, a kind of mandarin: sweet, honeyed and with lots of uplifting zest in its bright orange skin. Tangerine was named after Tangier in Morocco, which has been exporting tangerines since 1841. Tangerine and mandarin are basically interchangeable: their zestiness is instantly cheering - sweet, fruity, citrussy, with hints of neroli – and just what perfumers often look for to ‘lift’ the overture of a scent. As perfumer Christine Nagel explains, 'I like to use tangerine in many different structures for its fizzy, joyful, luminous effect in a fragrance.'
Smell tangerine in:
Boucheron Boucheron
Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur
Givenchy Eaudemoiselle de Givenchy
Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb
Osmanthus
You may well have smelled osmanthus in a fragrance without realising: this creamy white blossom gives a surprisingly mouthwatering, succulent, hints-of-peach-and-plum-and-apricot nuance to perfumes. Fresh – but sophisticated, too. Succulent – but somehow creamy and milky. You may also get hints of violet. And what is it...? A Far Eastern flower, a member of the lilac and olive family: known as Kwei Hwa or Mo Hsi, it’s been used there to fragrance tea and other drinks, as well as jam. But in the perfumer’s repertoire, it’s a pricy ($4,000+ a kilo), refined ingredient worth its weight in gold – sometimes blended with synthetics that bring out its peachiness, however. Osmanthus also works beautifully in leathery, suede-like scents, as well as florals.
Smell osmanthus in:
Givenchy L’Interdit
Michael Kors Michael Kors
Kumquat
Even with the popularity of fruity-floral scents, kumquats still make an appearance on our plates far more often than in our perfume bottles. They’re often eaten raw, to enjoy the sweet/sour flavour blend from the thin rind, contrasted with the juicy flesh. An essential oil can be extracted from that rind, though (as well as the white flowers) – producing a fragrance that’s more complex than a normal orange: sweet/tart, with hints of lemon and pine. This member of the citrus family is native to south Asia and has long been cultivated in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, too.
Smell kumquat in:
Basil
Ah, pesto… Basil is a delicious herb, when used in cooking – and a delicious, aromatic fragrance note, too, with a green, slightly sharp and spicy edge that lends itself really well to men’s scents. In ancient Arabic perfumery, basil was known as ‘the king of the fragrant plants’. Closer to home, this annual (a member of the mint family) grows up to three ft./almost a metre high, and the oil’s derived from the paper-thin leaves leaves. Different basils have different fragrance qualities: it can be lemony, or tarragon-like, or – well, just plain basil-y. Because some of the natural chemical compounds found in basil – eugenol, linalool and methyleugenol – are sensitisers, those now must be listed on perfume ingredients lists as a caution to those who know they react.
Smell basil in:
Givenchy Xeryus
Marc Jacobs Splash of Basil
Yves Saint Laurent L’Homme
White chocolate
Strictly, white chocolate isn’t chocolate at all: it’s created from cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla. But it’s easy to see (or rather, smell) why white chocolate could add an almost edibly delicious creaminess to a fragrance. It’s mostly used for its good-enough-to-eat sweetness in gourmand scents - but occasionally by perfumers for extra richness in fragrances from other families.
Smell white chocolate in:
Dried fruits
With fruits so abundant in contemporary perfumery, it was inevitable that the sweet stickiness of dried fruits, too, would be make their way into some creations. Once upon a time, dried fruits were a serious luxury, for the wealthy to enjoy in haute cuisine.
Today, many of us carry a little bag around to munch on during the day, as a (slightly) healthier alternative to sweets. Something else to slip into your handbag, then: different dried fruits are now recreated in perfumery – ‘fantasy’ ingredients (i.e. synthetic) – to evoke the sticky sweetness of dried figs, dates and apricots.
Smell dried fruits in:
L’Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier
Ink
Ink? In a fragrance? Absolutely. You can smell scents featuring ink on their fragrance pyramid and be right back there in the classroom, getting a whiff from your inky fingers.
Although ink-y notes can come from natural materials like oakmoss, it generally isn’t really ink that you’ll smell in a scent. More commonly, ‘ink’ is a synthetic ‘novelty’ ingredient, used mostly in men’s fragrances to give a mysterious hint of solvent or damp moss, or (romantically) to conjure up the vision of someone writing love letters, perhaps, with a good old-fashioned quill.
Smell ink in:
Ambroxan
A couple of cutting-edge perfumers – Romano Ricci (with Not a Perfume) and Geza Schoen (Escentric Molecule 02) have daringly based an entire perfume around this synthetic note, which was discovered in the 1950s as a replacement for ambergris. Long-lasting, come-hither, velvety: it really is complex and (virtually) a fragrance in its own right. Some people find it salty, smooth, skin-like (it can have you sniffing your arm slightly compulsively!), while others describe it as creamy, musky or labdanum-like. It has an abstract quality and has become widely used as a base note, in more complex perfumes.
Smell Ambroxan in:
Escentric Molecules Molecule 02
Forget-me-not
Your memory isn’t deceiving you: if you’ve ever buried your nose in a bunch of these beautiful, delicate blue (or sometimes white or pink) flowers hoping for a whiff of something equally gorgeous, you’ll have been disappointed: they’ve almost no scent at all.
So why does forget-me-not sometimes appear as a fragrance ingredient? (It’s even the name of a particular scent, from the Capri-based perfume house Carthusia). Our hunch is that forget-me-not is simply there to help conjure up an image for the perfume – either to give a sense of delicacy and softness, or for emotional reasons: according to folklore, the wearers of forget-me-nots would not be forgotten, by their lovers…
Rosehip
Half-way between a berry and a rose, we’d say this note is. From the berry of the rose – one of the richest sources of vitamin C, in nature – rosehip’s floral-fruity tang mostly makes its way into feminine fragrances, and the odd masculine scent.
Smell rosehip in:
Angel’s trumpet
Intoxicating, hallucinogenic, life-threatening plants – yes, truly – angel’s trumpet (a.k.a. datura) have been prized as sacred in many cultures.
Originating from south America, this member of the nightshade family can be grown in greenhouses – and outside, during summer months, as ornamental, which range from white to pale purple via yellow and pink.
Angel’s trumpets bloom at night, pumping out a heady, sweet scent which nowadays is often recreated synthetically. Probably just as well: the datura flower has been linked to many deaths, and has many powerful and/or downright dangerous side-effects. Down the years, those have been harnessed in rituals to induce a hallucinogenic state which allowed mere mortals to connect with the Gods (so legend has it). In voodoo, datura is used to induce ‘Zombification’.
There are other heady, rich, sweet flowers that can be used to add magic to perfumery, though. So there’s some suggestion that datura, or angel’s trumpet, is used mostly for its mythical status rather than any unique aromatic qualities…
There’s a great article on angel’s trumpet on the perfume website Fragrantica, if you click here.
Smell angel’s trumpet in:
Tuberose
Voluptuous, so voluptuous. Intoxicating, so intoxicating. And expensive, so expensive! It takes over 3600 kilos of flowers to produce just half a kilo of tuberose oil, with its sweet, exotic, complex, velvety floral opulence. Happily, it’s so concentrated that only a small amount need be used (although several very sophisticated scents do ramp up the tuberose, as a ‘star’ ingredient).
But in truth, the tuberose used in perfumery nowadays is often a synthetic copy – not just because of the price, but because through manipulating the aroma particles, it’s possible to bring out tuberose’s creaminess, or its more ‘camphor’-like side. Reminscent of jasmine, gardenia and orange blossom, tuberose is often blended alongside those other white flowers.)
The Polianthes tuberose plant is related to the lily - you can almost tell that, from smelling it. (Do please completely ignore the word ‘rose’ in its name.)
Known as ‘the carnal flower’ (Roja Dove also calls it ‘the harlot of perfumery’), tuberose’s blooms are so powerful that just a few stems can fill a room with their headiness, pumping out their scent for days or even weeks.
In Victorian times, tuberose symbolised ‘dangerous pleasure’ and voluptuousness – and that’s pretty much what perfumers are aiming for, when they use it. In India, meanwhile, it’s known for its aphrodisiac powers (young women are advised not to breathe its scent, after dark.) Innocent, tuberose most definitely is not…
Smell tuberose in:
Goutal Tubéreuse
Chanel Gardénia
Clive Christian C for Women
Dior Poison
Dior J’Adore Dior
Diptyque Do Son
Floris Tuberose
Frederic Malle Carnal Flower
Givenchy Amarige
Givenchy Organza
Guerlain Jardins de Bagatelle
L’Artisan Parfumeur Tubéreuse
Arum lily
Arum lily, calla lily, Easter lily: three names for one southern African native flower, which has the botanical name of Zantedeschia aethiopica. Long-stemmed, it’s pollen-rich (with a somewhat phallic ‘spike’ inside the sculptural single flower). Funnily enough, it’s not strictly a member of the lily family at all, though it is also symbolically a wedding flower, and also a funeral flower. (And it’s used in spells for beauty!) It has a waxy, soft floral quality, in perfumes – almost as if it lightly dusts the perfume with pollen.
Smell arum lily in:
Chocolate
Smell chocolate in:
Cartier Le Baiser du Dragon
Guerlain Elixir Charnel Gourmand Coquin
Photo courtesy of Green & Black’s
Castoreum
Beaver’s anal glands. Now who, exactly, first thought that an ingredient from the ‘castor sac’ (a gland near the beaver’s reproductive organs) would be just fantastic when bottled and dabbed onto the pulse-points…? (We often marvel at who must first have experimented with some of the more unusual elements in perfumery – and try to imagine some of the failed experiments, too…) Not surprisingly, this carnal, animalic note has since the beginning of the 20th Century – for ethical and environmental reasons –almost always been recreated synthetically: it’s really not on to kill an animal to extract a scented oil. (Although it was also used by physicians to treat fever, headache and hysteria.) But whatever the source, there’s no getting away from castoreum’s seriously musky sensuality, which also has a hint of fruitiness. Smelled neat (we’ve tried it: really not a good idea), it whiffs intensely of birch tar and leather; only when expertly blended does it soften and seduce, blending well with rose and oud in particular, and acting as an excellent ‘fixative’ for other notes. (‘Castor’, by the way, gets its name from the Greek word for beaver.)
Smell castoreum in:
Amouage Memoir Woman
Dior Diorama
Givenchy Ysatis
Guerlain Shalimar
Juliette Has A Gun Mad Madame
Juliette Has A Gun Midnight Oud
Guava
Guavas themselves, we find, don’t travel well: best enjoyed in a tropical setting at the peak of their ripeness. But guava as a fragrance ingredient certainly does travel – and has been turning up in many fruity-floral and gourmand creations, of late. When you eat it in situ, the flesh can be lush, sweet and juicy – or a touch on the bitter side. So it is with the fragrance ingredient: perfumers like the bitter-sweet, touch-of-lemon quality of guava, which ensure a fruity-floral scent doesn’t tip over into too-sweetness.
The plant itself is found in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, areas of the US like Florida, and Australia. The fruit can be round, or oval, depending on which species you’re looking at – and the skins can range from yellow or green to maroon. When they’re perfectly ripe, you’ll know it: the scent is sweet and musky – and the juice will almost certainly drip down your chin...
Smell guava in:
Versace Dylan turquoise
Bay leaf
In Greek and Roman times, heroes were garlanded by laurel – another name for bay - as a symbol of victory. Today, we can garland ourselves with bay through the use of fragrance: it’s a green, herbal note, maybe giving whispers of oregano and thyme, if you smell carefully, with subtle sweet hints of flowers. Bay laurel is evergreen (where would our gardens be without it?), and originally native to the Mediterranean. Like quite a few perfume ingredients, this is one that’s invaluable in cooking, too: a sprig in a casserole, or a sauce, adds a wonderful aroma. Contrary to myth, laurel is no relation to the bay used in the traditional spicy West Indian aftershave, Bay Rum – though it can be found in plenty of masculine fragrances, as well as feminine chypres.
Smell bay leaf in:
Paco Rabanne Invictus
Everlasting
Several names for this: Curry Plant, Herb of St. John, Immortelle (which you might know from the L’Occitane skincare range) - and botanically, Helichrysum augustifolium. All refer to small herb, which somehow manages to thrive in the most inhospitable, rocky, sun-baked zones in southern Europe. Amazingly, this grey-leafed toughie gives off a lovely, almost straw-like sweet scent, with hints of honey, tea, rose and chamomile - giving a flowery sweetness to perfumes…
Smell everlasting flower in:
Lily
There are over 100 species of lily and it always slightly breaks our heart to buy a bunch and discover: they’re not always scented… But many varieties – the Madonna lily (named as a nod to the purity of the Madonna), the Casablanca Lily and the Ambrée/Stargazer Lily most definitely are, and their subtly different scents are all caaptured in perfumes: intoxicating, heady, rich and sweet, reminding us of jasmine or tuberose. (‘Headspace’ technology is usually used to capture the scent: the air around the bloom is analysed, and the aroma compounds flawlessly recreated in the lab.)
Lilies have been used in perfumery since ancient times: they were very well-loved in Egypt, as part of a perfumed ointment ‘based on the flowers of 2000 lilies’, while the ancient Greeks used Madonna lilies to make a perfume called Susinon.
They’re wonderful in the home, possibly the perfume-lover’s must-have bloom. So long as the lily flowers you buy are indeed fragrant, they’ll pump their sweetness into the air without fading for a couple of weeks at a time…
Smell lily in:
Cartier Baiser Volé
Dior Diorissimo
Frederic Malle Lys Mediteranée
Heliotropin
Technically, heliotropin – the synthetic ingredient which recreates the heliotrope flower – is a member of the ‘aldehyde’ family of chemicals, and was first discovered in 1885.
Here’s the science bit: 1,3-Benzodioxole-5-carbaldehyde, piperonyl aldehyde, 3,4-methylenedioxybenzaldehyde and piperonal are all names for heliotropin. Here’s the non-scientific bit: this synthetic brilliantly copies the powdery, almondy or vanilla-y nuanaces of the beautiful purple, butterfly-magnet heliotrope flower (read about that here).
Like quite a few ingredients, though, heliotrope/heliotropin’s use has been reduced and restricted lately by the International Fragrance Association’s regulations (IFRA for short), and some iconic, heavy-on-the-heliotrope fragrances – including L’Artisan Parfumeur’s glorious Jour de Fête – have sadly been discontinued, as a result.
Smell heliotrope in:
Dior Dolce Vita
Emporio Armani Lei
Guerlain Après l’Ondée
Guerlain Cuir Beluga
Guerlain L’Heure Bleu
Paul Smith London Paul Smith Women
Penhaligon’s Cornubia
Cherry blossom
Generally blooming from March to mid-April (earlier, if temperatures are warmer), the beautiful cherry blossom – also known as sakura – is a welcome harbringer of Spring, and has become an iconic feature of Japan's tourist industry, with visitors flocking to see the stunning canopies of pink blooms in all their splendour. In the past few years, fragrance fashion has looked to the Middle East for inspiration – and catered to perfume-lovers there who often own as many as 170 perfumes. Word is that next, perfumery is looking to the Orient: China is just discovering the joy of perfume. The soft, sweet, pretty-pretty powderiness of blossoms from the flowering Prunus – so prized in Japan – are expected to start turning up in many more fragrances, as perfume starts to look East in earnest. Adding an ethereal veil of softly charming fresh-airiness to a fragrance, we invite you to explore this so-pretty ingredient in your next perfume...
Smell cherry blossom in:
Amouage Blossom Love
Christian Dior Sakura
Kenzo Amour
Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau So Fresh Kiss
Salvatore Ferragamo Signorina In Fiore
Shay & Blue English Cherry Blossom
Black locust
Ever smelled a scent that seems like it’s dripping in honey? There may be a touch of black locust in there. The tall tree – native to America, and great for furniture-making incidentally! – offers us intensely fragrant, creamy white blossoms, a little like orange blossom, which are particularly powerful at dusk. They’re also edible, should you ever find yourself in front of the actual tree (Robinia pseudoacacia). Bees love these intoxicating blooms: when you taste ‘acacia honey’, this is the tree whose pollen the bees have dipped into. Why black locust? Because when the flowers are over – and their perfume’s breathed its last – black seedpods emerge…
Smell black locust in:
Incense
When you read the note ‘incense’ in a fragrance, if often means ‘frankincense’. (Which we’ve filed under ‘F’.) But because of the huge range of incense-like aromas, ‘incense’ can mean a woody smell, a floral note, hints of spice or resin.
The history of incense itself goes back thousands of years – in fact, the first perfumes were burned, not worn: perfume actually gets its name from ‘per fumum’, or ‘through smoke’. The name ‘incense’, meanwhile also comes from the Latin: ‘incendere’ means ‘to burn’…
Incense can be created from a wide range of gums and resins: not just frankincense but storax, balsams of Peru/Tolu/copaiba and more – singly, or in combination, and sometimes with the addition of spices, herbs, flowers…
It all began in Ancient Egypt, where incense was first created using precious gums and resins from trees, imported from the Arabian coast and Somalia. Relics from the burning of incense, dating back thousands of years, have been uncovered by archaeologists. During the Roman Empire, huge quantities of frankincense made their way to Rome from Arabia.
Down the centuries, then, incense has been burned as a part of religious rites, as a fumigant – to cleanse the air and kill germs – or simply for the pure joy of its perfume. (It’s still widely used in religious rites, across different cultures – and has become very widespread in our homes, in the form of burning sticks and joss-sticks.)
And in liquid perfumes, a note of incense adds a richness, intensity and a touch of the exotic.
Smell incense in:
Guerlain Shalimar
Datura
Intoxicating, hallucinogenic, life-threatening plants – yes, truly – datura (a.k.a. Angel’s trumpet, or brugmansia) have been prized as sacred in many cultures.
Originating from south America, this member of the nightshade family can be grown in greenhouses – and outside, during summer months, as ornamental, which range from white to pale purple via yellow and pink.
Angel’s trumpets bloom at night, pumping out a heady, sweet scent which nowadays is often recreated synthetically. Probably just as well: the datura flower has been linked to many deaths, and has many powerful and/or downright dangerous side-effects. Down the years, those have been harnessed in rituals to induce a hallucinogenic state which allowed mere mortals to connect with the Gods (so legend has it). In voodoo, datura is used to induce ‘Zombification’.
There are other heady, rich, sweet flowers that can be used to add magic to perfumery, though. So there’s some suggestion that datura, or angel’s trumpet, is used mostly for its mythical status rather than any unique aromatic qualities…
Smell datura in:
Serge Lutens Datura Noir
Taif rose
Taif rose is especially prized in perfumery, beloved for its deep fragrance – which is even more intense than the better-known Damask rose to which it’s related. It also gives hints of tea alongside the soft powderiness.
Taif roses have 30 petals and grow around the city of Taif in western Saudi Arabia, not far from Mecca. The city’s 2000 metres above sea level, and the cooler temperature may be partly responsible for how well it flourishes there, under the control of just five local families. As with all roses, it’s important to harvest Taif roses early in the morning, before the heat of the day destroys the precious essential oils. The attar of roses which is produced is powerful and expensive – and no wonder: it takes around 40,000 rose flowers to produce one 10 g bottle of rose attar.
Smell Taif rose in:
Givenchy Very Irresistible
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire
Jimmy Choo Eau de Toilette
Photo with thanks to Perris Monte Carlo
Camellia
As any gardener will tell you, camellias don’t smell. It’s the leaves which can be distilled: the resulting oil is very high in a chemicall called eugenol. But in perfumery, it features more often as what’s known as a ‘fantasy’ note: a synthetic, designed to conjure up an image – here, the soft, voluptuous beauty of this winter-blossoming shrub. Camellia Japonica (our garden shrub, which originated in – yes – Japan) is also related to the tea plant, Camellia Sinensis. Sometimes, then, it’s paired with other tea-like ingredients – but more to paint an olfactory picture, in marketing terms, than for any other reason. That doesn’t detract, though, from camellia’s soft, voluptuous beauty.
Smell camellia in:
Carolina Herrera 212
Guaiac Wood
First off, how to pronounce it: gwy-ack. But how does it smell? A little bit birch tar-y, even tarmac-y. A little bit rubbery, sometimes. Hints of tobacco, too, or the whiff of burning leaves in winter. There’s nothing light and airy about guaiac wood, that’s for sure. From the striped heartwood of a small tree called Palo Santo (Bulnesia sarmienti) – which translates as ‘tree of life’ - it’s not as down-and-dirty as agarwood (oud), but is nevertheless used to give depth and intrigue to scents. It has a medicinal as well as a fragrant use, meanwhile: since at least the 16th Century, Native Americans have turned to guaiac wood to treat really serious ailments (hence the ‘life’ in the name). It’s also used for making charcoal, for posts and for engraving. Personally, we prefer to wear our guaiac wood, for an air of mystery.
Smell Guaiac Wood in:
Goutal Paris Vanille Exquise
Atelier Cologne Oolong Infini
L’Artisan Parfumeur Bois Farine
Balmain Ambre Gris
Versace Yellow Diamond
Wheat
What’s a staple ingredient of bread and cakes doing in perfumes…? Adding a nutty quality, actually: soft, almost snuggly or ‘skin-like’. You’re most likely to encounter wheat in a gourmand (‘edible’) or Ambrée fragrance – though sometimes, used sparingly, it’s used as a ‘modifier’: an ingredient added to make something smell truly unique, rather than another ‘me-too’ scent.
Smell wheat in:
Frederic Malle En Passant
Giorgio Armani Sensi
L’Artisan Parfumeur Jour de Fête
Miller Harris La Pluie
Bluebell
Ah, bluebells: those nodding, beautiful five-petalled spring flowers that seem so quintessentially English – but actually flourish anywhere from here to northern Spain, with over 500 species in all. (And although described as ‘blue’, they can be tinged from white to pink to deep, almost hyacinth in colour). These apparently delicate flowers - a.k.a. bellflowers – offer up an essential oil which has been described as reminiscent of a ‘clear spring day’. Stand in a bluebell wood, close your eyes and a delicate, green-floral haze will envelop and delight you: that’s what perfumers who work with bluebell are trying to recreate.
Smell bluebell in:
Penhaligon's Bluebell
Labdanum
Labdanum – from the Cistus plant (better known to some gardeners as Rock Rose) – is a pillar of chypre perfumes and many Ambrées. What you smell actually comes from a sticky brown resin, taken from a plant that grows (often in very inhospitable, dry locations) in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East. Harvesting techniques have become somewhat more sophisticated since the time when labdanum was collected from the coats and beards of sheep and goats that grazed on these tough little shrubs…! (Labdanum is today extracted from the leaves using solvents, although the branches can also be boiled.)
The early Arab perfumers used labdanum in their recipes – ‘the sweetest-scented of all substances’, as it was described, its links to perfumery actually go back to Egyptian time, when labdanum (a.k.a. ladanon, black balsam and gum cistus) was a key ingredient in the kyphi incense blend, used for ceremonial purposes. It’s also referred to in the Bible (as Balm of Gilead). In natural medicine, labdanum’s prescribed to boost the immune system.
One of the reasons it’s so widely used now is that it mimics the scent of ambergris – it’s also referred to as ‘amber’ – but it’s also a ‘fixative’, helping other ingredients to stay true, and to stay put. This warm and complex resin is sometimes perceived as leathery, sometimes honey-like, with hints of plum.
Smell labdanum in:
Byredo Rose Noir
Chanel Coco
Chanel Les Exclusifs 31 Rue Cambon
Dior Miss Dior
Dior Oud Ispahan
Memo Shams
Miller Harris La Fumée Arabie
Prada Intense Prada
Yves Saint Laurent Opium
Asafoetida
Asafoetida comes from the dried taproot of Ferula asafoetida – note the word ‘foetid’ in the name, because it really does honk: strong and sulphurous, it’s known variously as ‘devil’s dung’, ‘stinking dung’, or (charmingly) in French, ‘merde de diable’ (devil’s poo).
It’s used in Indian cooking and also as a medicinal – not surprisingly, as a repellent. (It’s also, rather usefully, anti-microbial and anti-flatulant – though not in perfume!). Some people say it smells of onions or leeks; others, that it has a balsamy, resinous or even sweaty edge - but as with so many botanical ingredients, asafoetida can work magic when skilfully blended in perfumes: the teeniest of quantities acts as an ‘accenter’, to boost the power of other ingredients – including galbanum, which is widely-used in chypre scents, including Ma Griffe by Carven, and Pierre Balmain’s Vent Vert.
Smell asafoetida in:
L'Artisan Perfumer Premier
Verbena
Have you ever enjoyed fresh lemon verbena tea? We think there’s no more refreshing drink on the planet. The leaves of this flowering plant – which can grow to two or three metres – are deliciously lemony and fresh when rubbed, and give a cleanness and ‘uplifting’ freshness to scents. It’s the long leaves which are prized, rather than the tiny (and fleeting) white flowers. (Not to be confused, incidentally, with the type of verbena grown in Britain, which has no value in perfumery.)
Smell verbena in:
Acqua di Parma Colonia Assoluta
Goutal Eau du Sud
Boucheron Boucheron
Boucheron Jaïpur Bracelet
Givenchy Very Irresistible
Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale
Lime blossom (linden)
Lime blossom (a.k.a. linden, or Tilia cordata) almost seems to drip with honey. (In fact, if you’ve ever parked your car under a linden tree in full flower, it does just that, dropping sticky, furry and fiendishly difficult-to- remove syrup onto the paintwork…)
Tall and stately and one of the oldest trees in existence, it’s said to date back 70 million years. The flowers of the tree are wonderfully nectarous: a magnet for bees (linden honey is particularly delicious). Although linden - also known as ‘tilleul’ in perfumery - can be extracted from the dried flowers, it’s usually recreated synthetically: beautifully sweet, exhilarating, bright as a summer’s day.
(It’s completely unrelated to lime trees, by the way: the name ‘lime’ evolved from the 16th Century Middle English word ‘lind’.)
Smell linden in:
Yves Saint Laurent Paris
Grass
Some hay fever sufferers, maybe – but most of us just love the fresh, green scent of grass.
It’s an extraordinary plant – or rather, plants: there are more than 9000 species of grass. (And of course, it’s the major food source for most animals.)
In perfumery, though, grass delivers a sweet, herbaceous scent – maybe not quite like walking past a house where the grass has just been cut, but delivering a gust (or a whisper) of outdoorsy freshness, nonetheless.
Smell grass in:
Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Bouquet de Mai
Yuzu
We’ve noticed yuzu turning up in quite a few fragrance compositions lately. It’s a citrus note, often found as part of a zesty blend in colognes. (Latin name: Citrus junos.) The extract comes from the peel of the fruit, and is grapefruit-y and ‘green’ at the same time. Quite aside from its uplifting qualities, yuzu is very useful to perfumers because it prolongs the life of other citrus notes, whose delicious freshness doesn’t tend to linger for long.
Smell yuzu in:
Boucheron Jaipur Saphir
Cartier Eau de Cartier Extrême
Diptyque Oyedo
Moschino Cheap & Chic
Oakmoss
Oakmoss is among perfumers’ most beloved ingredients: an essential element of fragrances within the chypre family (which you can read more about here), in partnership with bergamot: it ‘anchors’ volatile notes. Its more romantic French name is ‘mousse de chêne, but this tight-curled plant – botanical name Evernia prunastri - is actually a lichen which grows on oaks throughout Europe and North Africa, only flourishing in unpolluted air. It can range in colour from light green to black depending on whether it’s dry or damp - and it smells a lot more beautiful than it looks.
Oakmoss smells earthy, and woody, sensual with hints of musk and amber and is really not like anything else in the perfumer’s ‘palette’ because it also works fantastically as a ‘fixative’ to give scent a longer life on the skin. As you might suspect, there’s a touch of damp forest floor to this material, too.
The use of oakmoss in perfumery goes back a long, long way. Coty’s Chypre perfume, in 1917, popularised this type of fragrance – but in fact, chypre scents, inspired by the island of Cyprus, had been beguiling people for centuries. For hundreds of years, from Roman times (that’s as far back as we know about) this style of perfume blended styrax, calamus and labdanum; in the Middle Ages, oak moss began to be added, to create ‘pastilles’ for burning.
But there’s one snag with this exquisite material: it’s been ‘blacklisted’ by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) as a potential irritant, its use restricted by European regulation to 0.1% in perfume compositions that are applied to the skin – a restriction which has sent ‘noses’ into tailspins in labs across the world, as they were forced to remove or reduce this lynchpin ingredient in their often very famous formulations. Some ‘noses’ played around with ingredients like patchouli, or synthetic ‘imitations’ of oakmoss to try to achieve some of the same effects as this wonder of the natural scent world, but there’s no question that some favourite fragrances started not to smell like themselves.
Now, though, there’s a way through – which is glorious news for chypre-lovers everywhere. Through a process of ‘fractionation’ – separating the different elements of an individual ingredient, and removing the potential sensitiser – it’s possible to get an ingredient that’s much closer to the oakmoss we know and loved.
However, as Guerlain’s in-house perfumer Thierry Wasser explained to us, whenever something is removed from an ingredient through fractionation, ‘it leaves a hole’. Thierry’s stroke of genius was to plug the gap with a touch of celery seed, instead. Hey, presto: Mitsouko – probably the most famous chypre in the world still available today – is restored to its former glory. (And we just love the way that perfumers rise to challenges like this…)
PS Oakmoss has a near-relation, known as ‘tree moss’ - Evernia Furfuracea - which grows on pine trees, has a turpentine-y scent before it’s blended, and is also very highly-prized among perfumers.)
Smell oakmoss in:
Guerlain Mitsouko
Thyme
Thyme gets its name from the Greek word meaning ‘to fumingate’ – and its fragrant use goes back that far: the Greeks used it as a powerful incense in their temples (it was even thought to repel snakes), while the Arab perfumers also used it in their recipes. There are many different varieties of this Mediterranean shrub, but today it’s the flower tops of ‘Garden Thyme’ (a.k.a. ‘French Thyme’), or Thymus vulgaris, from which most of the essential oil is steam-distilled. It’s spicy, aromatic – and surprisingly leathery, in a perfume. A pinch of thyme is more likely to be found in a ‘masculine’ fragrance than something targeted at women, though it also makes its way into quite a few unisex Colognes.
Smell thyme in:
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Absolue Pour le Matin
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Cologne Pour le Matin
Miller Harris Fleur de Sel
Benzyl acetate
It sounds synthetic. Often, a synthetic note of benzyl acetate IS used by perfumers – but in reality, benzyl acetate is also found naturally in many flowers, including ylang-ylang, gardenia, hyacinth and jasmine. It has fruity undertones (peachy, pear-y, banana-y, apple-y), but complements white flowers wonderfully. So much so that the colourless liquid is actually used in almost all jasmine-based scents…
Aldehydes
Aldehydes triggered a revolution in perfumery. Think of them as something like ‘rocket fuel’, boosting the ‘whoosh’ of a fragrance, when you first smell it: they’re like the fizz of champagne, having the power to make a perfume truly sparkle and effervesce. Aldehydes may be found in natural materials – rose, citronella, cinnamon bark and orange rind, for instance – but are also a family of synthetic chemicals, formed (here’s the science bit) ‘by the partial oxidation of primary alcohols’.
Contrary to legend, aldehydes first made their fragrant debut in 1905 in a scent called Rêve D'Or (Golden Dream), by Armingeat. They also feature in Houbigant’s Quelques Fleurs (created 1912) and Lanvin’s Arpège. But it was their appearance in Chanel No. 5 that changed everything – literally sending perfumery on a new, modern trajectory, opening up a world of richness and strength.
So the story goes, Ernest Beaux – Chanel’s original perfumer – either misread his sums, or accidentally tipped a much greater quantity of aldehydes into the sample of perfume he was preparing for the discerning Mademoiselle Chanel, creating an overdose with almost 1% aldehydes. She loved it. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Aldehydes are actually a family of ingredients: they can be metallic, starchy, citrusy, waxy. Take C7 – or heptanal, naturally occurring in clary sage, with its herby-green odour. Or C8 – octanal – which is reminiscent of oranges. C9 – nonanal – smells of roses. Aldehyde C10 – decanal – powerfully conjures up orange rind. Citral is lemons, while C11 gives a ‘cleanness’ to fragrance (it’s naturally present in coriander leaf oil). C12 – well, that’s lilac or violets. C13? Waxy, grapefruity. And where would Guerlain’s Mitsouko be without the peach-skin warmth of C14…?
(There is a really well-researched, well-written article on aldehydes on the Perfume Shrine blog, if you’d like the ‘science bit’ in much more depth – click here).
Smell aldehydes in:
Penhaligon's Tralala
Rose
A fragrance without roses is almost as unthinkable as a love affair without kisses. Not only are roses the most romantic of flowers to look at: they’re an absolute cornerstone of perfumery – the most important flower of all, from the point of view of a nose: sometimes powdery, sometimes woody, musky, myrrh-y, clove-like, sometimes fruity, or just blowsily feminine – but always, intensely romantic. Roses are said to feature in at least 75% of modern feminine fragrances, and at least 10% of all men’s perfumes.
Today's savvy perfumers, however, are far from the first to recognise the sheer sensual potential of this 'Queen of Flowers'. In Classic myth, the rose was linked both with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart, Venus. When Cleopatra welcomed Mark Antony to her boudoir, her bed was strewn with these aphrodisiac blooms and the floor hidden under a foot and a half of fresh-picked petals. Who could resist rolling around in that? Certainly no hot-blooded Roman, homesick for a city where rosewater bubbled through the fountains, awnings soaked in rose oil shielded VIPs in public amphitheatres from the baking sun, pillows and mattresses were stuffed with rosepetals (the better to propel the weary towards dreamland) and where rose garlands were the ultimate Roman must-have status symbol. The same flowers turned up in delicately-scented puddings, love potions and medicines. At one bacchanale, the Emperor Nero, clearly no tightwad, had silver pipes installed so guests could be spritzed with rosewater between courses.
The fragrant liquid which refreshed Roman guests and was flung up by fountains all around town, however, was rosewater - the water in which roses have been steeped, then discarded. In reality, rosewater is the poor relation of the ‘true’ rose scent, from the oil that’s so essential a component of the perfumes which today send our senses into a delicious spin.
Rose essential oil can come in the form of rose otto (also known as attar of roses), or rose aboslute. Rose otto’s extracted via steam distillation, while the more precious rose absolute, via solvent extraction, or CO2 extraction.
The roses most commonly used in perfumery are the Turkish rose, the Damask (or Damascene rose) and Rosa Centifolia (the ‘hundred-leafed rose’), which is grown around Grasse in the south of France, and generally considered to produce the highest quality rose absolute. (This rose is also known as Rose de Mai, because it generally blooms in the month of May, and – romantically – ‘the painter’s rose’, because it features in many works of the old masters.)
Around 70% of the rose oil in the world comes from Bulgaria; other significant producers are Turkey, Iran and Morocco, and precious, limited quantities from Grasse. The task of the rose-picker is to pick the dew-drenched blooms before 10 a.m. at the latest, when the sun evaporates their exquisite magic. So fast does the rose fade, in fact, that some farmers in Turkey and Bulgaria transport their own copper stills to the fields, heating them on the spot over wood fires to distill the precious Damask Rose oil, which separates from the water when heated in only the tiniest of quantities: 170 rose flowers are said to relinquish but a single drop.
Smell rose in:
Goutal Paris Rose Absolue
Maison Francis Kurkdjian À la rose
Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle Lipstick Rose
Goutal Rose Pompon
Acqua di Parma Rosa Nobile
Floris A Rose For...
Diptyque Opône
Floral Street Neon Rose
Lancôme Trésor
Yves Saint Laurent Paris
Fennel
Close your eyes and think of aniseed… Or maybe tarragon… Licorice, even… The herb fennel can be used to add a herbaceous, soft, aromatic spiciness to fragrances. (Fennel is of course familiar to most of us as a food – but did you know it’s also used in creating absinthe, the no-longer-banned-but-it-still-makes-you-dance-on-tabletops French alcoholic drink?)
The seeds left behind when the pretty yellow umbelliferous (umbrella-like) flowers have faded are used in steam-distillation of the fennel essential oil. (Those seeds are also chewed, in countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, to freshen the breath.)
Actually, fennel produces TWO types of oil: bitter fennel, and sweet fennel, which can be used as top notes OR heart notes, blending well with lavender, rose, geranium, basil, lemon, rosemary, violet leaf and sandalwood.
Savvy perfumers know exactly which to use to get their desired effect…
Smell fennel in:
Maison Francis Kurdijan Aqua media Forte
Daisy
Like quite a few flowers, daisy’s used more for conjuring up an image in a perfume than for the actual smell. In nature, daisies have a subtle, herbaceous green scent. But they look fresh, and cheerful, and uplift the spirit – and in fragrance marketing, that’s can be a useful allusion. The daisy gets its name from the old English: ‘day’s eye’ – because the flowers open up at dawn, and close at dusk.
Smell daisy in:
Yardley Daisy
Star anise
Aniseed, licorice, fennel, tarragon: star anise reminds us of all of these. Illicium verum has to be the most beautiful-looking spice ever: star-shaped, with tiny, pungently-scented seeds. The plant itself has dark green leaves and teeny flowers, followed by the star-shaped seedpods. Sun-dried, they make their way into all sorts of foods – and have been used in Ambrée medicine for over 3,000 years, for its stimulating effect on the digestion. The clear, almost colourless oil is steam-distilled from the fresh or partly-dried pods, and the spiciness of the resulting oil goes especially well in Ambrée-style perfumes, working well alongside cardamom, bay, coriander, lavender, neroli, orange, petitgrain, mandarin, cedarwood and rosewood.
Smell star anise in:
Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile
Goutal Mandragore
Bulgari BLV Eau de Parfum II
Giorgio Armani Armani Code
Marc Jacobs Blush
Grapefruit
Whoosh! Quite often, especially in Colognes, you’ll get a zesty burst of grapefruit in the very first hit. Sharp, aromatic, refreshing, grapefruit – from the peel of the fruit of the Citrus paradise tree - blends well with other citrus ingredients in the ‘overture’, or top notes, of summery and uplifting scents, blending well with basil, lavender, cedarwood and ylang-ylang. (In aromatherapy, it’s a wake-up oil.) It really is happiness, bottled.
The history of this tangy-sweet citrus is surprisingly short: it’s only been around for 400 years or so, originating in the Caribbean: a natural hybrid between the pomelo and the orange, introduced to Florida in the 1820s. (We love that it’s also known as the ‘Forbidden Fruit’, as well as one of ‘The Seven Wonders of Barbados’!)
Smell grapefruit in:
DKNY Be Delicious
Floris Pink Grapefruit
Marc Jacobs Daisy
Sandalwood
Ancient Arab perfumers were seduced by sandalwood’s sweet magic long, long ago: in pulverised or sawdust form, it formed the base of solid perfumes and incense. And sandalwood has long key to spiritual traditions in India, too: so soothing, it’s considered an aid to meditation, helping to still a whirring mind. In rituals, sandalwood oil may be applied to the forehead, the temples, or rubbed between the eyebrows. And it’s used as incense and burned on altars, as a way of communicating with the heavens.
Santalum album isn’t actually a tree but a parasitic plant which grows by suckering itself to the roots of other trees, and slowly growing as high as 10 metres. To extract the deep, sweet woodiness, wood or root chippings are steam-distilled. If you ever come across a piece of the wood itself, it’s magical: the scent can still be enjoyed, years after it was harvested. (A little light sanding re-releases the scent, if it fades.)
Sandalwood’s creamy sweetness is used in the base of as many as 50% of feminine perfumes. Supremely versatile, it blends exquisitely with cloves, lavender, geranium, jasmine, galbanum, frankincense, black pepper, jasmine and patchouli; it works as a ‘fixative’, tethering other ingredients and keeping them ‘true’, in a composition. But it’s under a bit of a cloud, perfume-wise. So many sandalwood trees have been cut down in India, largely for production of perfume and incense – often illegally harvested, because it’s such a valuable commodity - that it’s become endangered. The good news, however, is that plantations in Australia are now coming on-stream, producing sandalwood oil of high quality – to the relief of ‘noses’. (And conservationists.) And at the same time, a wide range of synthetic sandalwood-like ingredients are now used in place of this at-risk wood, to give that smooth milkiness.
Smell sandalwood in:
Chanel Coco
Dior Hypnotic Poison
Guerlain Samsara
Guerlain Shalimar
Versace Crystal Noir
Violet leaves
Violet leaves smell quite different to the flower which emerges later. Almost cool-as-a-cucumber, a touch metallic - yet fresh and new-mown-grass-y at the same time. Unlike the flowers, which add a powdery touch to scents, violet leaf smells very ‘green’ – and works best in watery fragrances and masculine scents, especially in the fougère family. Sometimes, though, both the violet leaf and the flower are used together, for a ‘cool’ contemporary violet effect, taking the edge off violet’s slightly great-auntishly old-fashioned powderiness.
Smell violet leaf in:
Cartier Eau de Cartier
Balenciaga Balenciaga Paris
Donna Karan Be Delicious
Marc Jacobs Daisy
Miller Harris Jasmin Vert
Caramel
It was the legendary fragrance Angel which really put caramel as an ingredient on the map: that sweet, seductive, eat-me quality which gourmand fragrances embody. (Though it was probably L’Artisan Parfumeur Vanilia in which caramel made its sugary debut.) It may not come as a surprise, though, to discover that this is a synthetic, or ‘fantasy’, ingredient rather than something lovely distilled from desserts, puddings or candies. The actual aroma compound is known as ethyl maltol: its softness almost melts into floral notes, delivering a flirty, playful femininity, as well as depth and intrigue.
Smell caramel in:
Dior Miss Dior Chérie
Guerlain Shalimar Parfum Initial
Prada Candy Prada
Thierry Mugler Angel
Avocado
This yummiest of fruits originates from Central Mexico (‘guacamole-land’!). And are you ready for the explanation of the name…? ‘Avocado’ comes from ‘aquacate’ – which apparently derives from the Aztec for testicle. (A reference to the shape of the fruit.) It’s very rarely used as a fragrance note – more widely, for the brilliant skin-smoothing, nourishing properties of avocado oil, in body products and facial care.
But just sometimes, you’ll catch a whisper of avocado in perfumery: it has a green, slightly sweet, vegetal quality…
Smell avocado in:
Versace Versus Time for Relax
Ionone
‘The sweetness of the violet’s deep blue eyes, Kissed by the breath of heaven, Seems color’d by its skies’, wrote Byron.
And who doesn’t adore those tiny nodding blossoms, with their almost-candied, sweet, powdery scent? Perfumers, that’s who. Because violet petals are really reluctant to give up their scent naturally. (And when they do, the essence is prohibitively expensive.)
Happily, ionones recreate the scent of Parma violets almost perfectly. Actually, the discovery of these synthetics – by two German chemists, Tiemann and Krüger – was a breakthrough moment in perfumery, changing the face of modern perfumery. And today, thanks to their sheer versatility, notes from the ionone family appear in almost every fragrance creation. ‘Noses’ – professional perfumers - love, love, LOVE ionones…
Different ionones have subtly different characters, though, ranging from soft violets in full bloom through the iris/earthy/woodsiness of an ionone variation by the name of methyl ionone. And they can be used subtly – like backing singers – or be pushed out into the spotlight, in a scent that’s pure violet femininity.
Amaryllis
Anyone for ‘Naked Lady’? That’s an evocative name for a fragrance ingredient, if ever we heard one. But if you’ve ever received (or even grown) one of these bulbs (generally at Christmas), you’ll know what the name means: this trumpet-shaped flower really blooms when the foliage has died down. Bury your nose in an amaryllis (do mind the pollen!), and you might get whispers of a floral note, with fruity undertones – somewhere mid-way between a rose and a nectarine.
Smell amaryllis in:
Yves Saint Laurent Cinema
Licorice
The word ‘licorice’ (or liquorice) comes from the Old French licoresse, and originally from the Greek meaning ‘sweet root’ (it really is, if you’ve ever chewed a licorice stick). It’s been around for thousands of years: archaeologists found Roman licorice along Hadrian’s Wall, and it was also uncovered in the pyramids. Though reminiscent of fennel and aniseed, Glycyrrhiza glabra is not actually related to them, however.
But did you know that licorce is used in love spells…? Sprinkled in the footprints of a lover, it’s said to keep them from wandering. And in a fragrance…? Equally bewitching.
Smell licorice in:
Bulgari Jasmin Noir
Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire
Guerlain Myrrhe & Délires
Miller Harris Couer d’Eté
Passion fruit
Like so many juicy ingredients, passion fruit’s squeezed its way into many of the fruity-floral scents that have lately become so popular: tangy, a little grapefruit-y, and well-matched with other ‘tropical’ scent ingredients, adding a tart intrigue. (The actual aroma compound itself is called oxane, FYI.) You might think that the name has sexy overtones – but not at all: allegedly the passionflower (a glorious blue/purple, twining vine) and passion fruit were named by Spanish Catholic missionaries who saw the flower as the symbol of the Passion of Christ, because the ring around its heart looks like the Crown of Thorns. Passus means ‘suffering’; flos translates as ‘flower’ – so the plants are also known as ‘Flowers of Jesus’. And now you know.
Smell passion fruit in:
Carolina Herrera 212 VIP
Chanel Allure
Honeysuckle
Walk through a garden – especially at dusk – and you’ll smell honeysuckle way before you see it: heady and nectarous, a little like jasmine tinged with vanilla.
Over a hundred species of honeysuckle exist and among the most fragrant are the wild English honeysuckle (Lonicera caprifolium) the Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) and Lonicera fragrantissima, which comes originally from China. (All glorious if you’re looking for scented plants to scramble over a tree or a trellis – although beware with the Japanese variety: it’s so vigorous, it’s regarded as an ‘unwanted weed’ in several states of the USA, as well as in New Zealand.)
Many of us have picked a honeysuckle blossom and sucked the honey from the base – but alas, honeysuckle gives up its dewy sweet nectar a lot more readily than its smell, and the yield of essential oil from these plants is really low. So although honeysuckle’s dried flowers are used in sachets and pot pourri, it’s mostly a synthetic version you’ll encounter twining its way through perfume compositions. (Although some gifted natural perfumers manage recreate the smell of honeysuckle through clever alchemy of other naturals…) Depending on the other notes used, it can enhance a touch of aniseed, blend romantically with other white florals – orange blossom and jasmine – or add a fresh green note…
Smell honeysuckle in:
Goutal Paris Eau de Camille
Goutal Paris Le Chevrefeuille
Cartier Cartier de Lune
Givenchy Organza Eau de Toilette
Dior Les Creations de Monsieur Dior Diorella
Marc Jacobs Dot
Michael Kors Island
Rhubarb
According to predictions, rhubarb is set to become even more of a key ingredient in future fragrance trends...
Smell rhubarb in:
Byredo La Tulipe
Miller Harris Le Pamplemousse
Balsam of copaiba
Sweet, almost honeyed, balsamic, peppery: copaiba essential oil is often used in incense. It’s derived from a tree in Central and South America (Copaifera officinalis) and acts as a base note and fixative. (It’s also known as copahu balm.) We’re not sure why the three ‘balsamic’ ingredients (copaiba, Peru and tolu) have the word balsam first – ‘balsam of’ but that seems to be the tradition…
Benzyl alcohol
An aromatic alcohol, benzyl alcohol can be derived from many plants including jasmine, tuberose, wallflower and ylang-ylang. As well as occurring naturally, though, benzyl alcohol may also be chemically produced from petrochemical sources. It’s generally used as a fixative or stabiliser in many perfumes – helping to make sure that a favourite scent smells consistent, and keeping it ‘true’ for many years in the bottle. It can be a skin sensitiser for some people, and is therefore listed on fragrance packaging so that it can be avoided by those who have a problem. (In concentrated form, benzyl alcohol can also work as a treatment for head lice – although we don’t for a moment recommend dousing your child’s scalp in a favourite white floral scent…)
Elemi
Elemi is a pale yellow fragrant resin, tapped from a tree – Manila Elemi, or Canarium luzonicum - which grows in the Philippines. With a sharp balsamic-spicy, almost lemony scent, elemi’s invaluable as an incense ingredient and also for ‘fixing’ perfumes, tethering ingredients which otherwise would fade fast. Outside perfumery, the resin’s a handy herbal remedy – good for everything from bronchitis and coughs to healing wounds and scars.
Smell elemi in:
Diptyque Eau Duelle
Francis Kurkdjian Oud Maison
Davana
Think of this as a ‘chameleon’ note: even more than most notes, davana is said to smell differently on each of us – which is why it’s prized by some perfumers. The davana herb (a member of the silver-leafed Artemisia family) is native to India, and once it’s steam-distilled has a sweet, tea-like smell, reminiscent of dried fruit. Mostly, it’s used in eastern and ambrée perfumes, chypres and fougères – but pops up in one very famous fragrance (see below).
Smell davana in:
Maison Crivelli Ambre Chromatique
Lilac
Lilacs were introduced into Europe via Spain around the 16th Century, from the Arabs. The early fragrant use of the flowers was in pomanders. Our favourite lilac legend, though, is that the deep floral fragrance was believed in Celtic cultures to transport humans into fairyland and the spiritual world.
A fragrant oil can be solvent-extracted from the foamy blossoms of the Syringa plant (it comes from the Greek, meaning ‘pipe: shepherds made flutes from lilac wood and it was believed that whoever heard their music would never forget it). Nowadays, a synthetic form of lilac’s often used in contemporary perfumery, as it’s possible to recreate the tender natural fragrance perfectly, more reliably – and year round.
Do smell deep, though, and see if you can detect intrigue beneath the soft surface. Because Andy observes: 'My white lilac blooms early, due to an early spring in Zurich. I am convinced that I can detect a hidden note of car exhaust, modern car, there. How cool is that? It goes to show: flowers are more than what we see. I love them for that.'
Smell lilac in:
Cristobal Balenciaga Le Dix
Frederic Malle En Passant
Givenchy Le de Givenchy
Guerlain Chamade
Guerlain Champs Elysées
Guerlain Idylle
Guerlain Mitsouko
Guerlain Nahéma
Versace Versace