Note Library

Bergamot

A small, knobbly citrus, somewhere between a lemon and a bitter orange, grown almost entirely on the coast of Calabria, the toe of Italy. Its peel is pressed into an oil that smells bright, tart and a little bitter, like lemon and mandarin at once, with something floral, gently spicy and tea-like underneath: it is the smell of Earl Grey. It is more elegant and more complex than the other citruses, and it opens more perfumes than any other note, above all colognes, chypres and fougères, giving the first minutes their lift and their air.

Bergamot (Ionian Coast)

Bergamot from the Ionian coast of Calabria, the strip of land between the Aspromonte mountains and the sea where nearly all the world's bergamot is grown. The house is naming where it comes from, the region whose oil every other bergamot is measured against: bright, green and floral, and full.

Bergamot Peel

No change: bergamot oil is pressed from the peel anyway; this only names the part it comes from.

Electric Bergamot

Not another kind of bergamot but ADAR's own word for the one in Root Code: the peel's sharp, sparkling side, the fizz of its first minute, put forward.

Bitter Orange

The Seville orange, too sour to eat, and the most generous tree in perfumery: its peel gives this oil, its blossom gives neroli and orange flower, and its leaves and twigs give petitgrain. The peel smells fresher and drier than sweet orange: tart, bitter like the pith, with a green and faintly floral undertone and a sweetness that stays longer than you would expect of a citrus. It is one of the classic openings of eau de cologne.

Blood Orange

A sweet orange whose flesh has turned red. It smells like orange made deeper and sweeter and less sharp, with a juicy, berry-like tartness that people often call a hint of raspberry. The name is only its colour: there is nothing metallic or bloody about it. Because it is rounder than lemon or bergamot, it slides easily into leather, tobacco, woods, spices and resins.

Citron

The ancient citrus, cédrat in French, and one of the few wild fruits most other citruses descend from: big, knobbly and almost all thick rind. Pressed, the rind gives a dry, zesty oil, lemony but less sweet, with an elegant bitterness and a soft floral edge, and it lasts a little longer than most citrus. It has been used in colognes for centuries.

Expressed Citron

Citron oil pressed cold from the rind rather than distilled with steam. Pressing uses no heat, so the oil keeps the fresh, natural smell of the fruit itself; it is how nearly all citrus oils are made, and the name is saying this is the fresh kind.

Citrus

No single fruit: the whole family of citrus peels, lemon, orange, bergamot, mandarin, grapefruit and lime, used together for a bright, sparkling, clean opening. Perfumers call them hesperidic, after the Hesperides, the nymphs who kept a garden of golden fruit. They are nearly all pressed cold from the peel to keep them fresh; they make the first minutes of a perfume feel sunny and awake, and they are the first thing to go.

Citruses

No change: the same note, written another way.

Clementine

A small, seedless mandarin, the Christmas mandarin, and its note smells like peeling one: sweet, juicy and soft, hardly bitter at all. Some clementine oils carry a little tartness from the twigs and unripe fruit, and a faint orange-blossom sweetness. It is the friendliest of the citruses: an opening that smiles rather than sparkles.

Grapefruit

Tart, bitter and juicy, like the fruit cut open. Most of what makes it smell of grapefruit is one molecule, nootkatone, present in the peel in tiny amounts, and nootkatone also smells faintly of wood and vetiver, so grapefruit lasts longer than most citrus and leans towards the woods as it fades. It is bright and energising, a favourite of fresh, sporty and masculine perfumes.

White Grapefruit

Oil from white, pale-fleshed grapefruit rather than pink: drier, sharper and more bitter, with an edge almost like tonic water's quinine, where pink grapefruit is sweeter, juicier and a little berry-like.

Green Mandarin

Mandarin pressed while the fruit is still green and unripe: sharper, tarter and leafier than the sweet, candied smell of ripe mandarin, with a floral hint. It is the smell left on your hands after peeling one. Perfumers prefer it to the ripe kinds, and use it in fresh colognes and to brighten woody men's perfumes.

Lemon

Pressed cold from the peel, so it smells like the fruit's fresh zest: sharp, sour, clean and sparkling, with a sweet, almost sherbet brightness. It is one of the lightest notes there is, opening a perfume brilliantly and among the first things to fade. Lemon is the heart of the classic cologne, and in almost any perfume it reads as clean and cheerful.

Lemon (Italy)

Lemon from Italy, where nine in ten lemon groves are in Sicily and Calabria, on rich volcanic soil. Italian, and above all Sicilian, lemon oil is the classic one, the bright, clean standard other citrus oils are measured against.

Lemon Peel

No change: lemon oil is pressed from the peel anyway; this only names the part it comes from.

Sicilian Lemon

Lemon from Sicily, the island most of Italy's lemons grow on, whose oil is thought the finest there is: the bright, clean standard other citrus oils are measured against.

Lime

Greener, sharper and more bitter than lemon, with a sherbet fizz. How it is made changes it more than for any other citrus: pressed cold from the peel it is fresh, zesty and true to the fruit; distilled with steam it turns greener and denser, with a sweet, hay-like side. Either way it sits at the very top of a perfume, bright and quick.

Cold-Pressed Lime

Lime pressed cold from the peel rather than distilled: truer to the fruit, fresher, zestier and more complex, where distilled lime is greener and denser.

Lime Rind

No change: the rind is the peel, which is where lime oil comes from anyway.

Orange

Sweet orange: the peel of the everyday orange, pressed. It smells sweet, juicy, fresh and tangy, exactly like an orange being peeled: cheerful and round, less bitter than bitter orange and warmer than lemon. It is one of the most used materials in perfumery and one of the most fleeting, opening colognes and fruity florals and warming ambers.

Brazilian Orange

Sweet orange oil from Brazil, the world's largest grower of oranges, where the oil is collected as the fruit is pressed for juice. It is the everyday orange oil at its most typical: fresh and sweet, like squeezed peel.

Petitgrain

Not from the fruit but from the leaves and green twigs of the bitter orange tree, distilled with steam. It has something of neroli's sweetness but is woodier, greener and more bitter: the smell of a leaf crushed between your fingers in a shaded orange grove. It is fresh with a slightly masculine edge, a staple of colognes, and most of it now comes from Paraguay.

Tangerine

Almost the same fruit as mandarin, named after Tangier in Morocco, where it was shipped from, and it smells almost the same: sweet, fruity and zesty, with a touch of honey and a hint of neroli. It is light and quick, an opening that cheers you up and then flits off.

Yuzu

A Japanese citrus used for its peel, and it smells like several citruses at once: the bitter side of grapefruit, lime, bergamot and a little mandarin. It is tart and zesty rather than juicy, green, with a sharp, almost aldehydic sparkle and a faint resinous edge. Perfumers like it because it is more complex than lemon and helps other citrus notes last longer.

Sweet Yuzu

Not another fruit but Pineward's word for its yuzu: the sweeter, mandarin-and-orange side of the peel put forward, over its sharp and sour side.

Artemisia

The wormwood family of silvery, bitter herbs, and in perfumery most often armoise, the oil of a wild Mediterranean artemisia. It is intensely green, dry and a little camphorous, bitter and herbal, with a hint of hay and something faintly smoky. It adds edge and a slightly dark, poetic mood rather than sweetness: a little of it sharpens a citrus opening or an aromatic fougère, and it is most often found in men's perfumes, where it balances the florals.

Basil

The kitchen herb, and it smells like a leaf rubbed between your fingers: green, sharp and a little spicy, with a touch of clove, since it shares clove's molecule, eugenol. Different basils lean different ways, some lemony, some like tarragon or aniseed, some simply basil. In perfume it gives a fresh kitchen-garden feel, bright and easy, and it sits beautifully with citrus.

Chamomile

The small daisy of chamomile tea. Its oil, usually from Roman chamomile, is sweet, warm and herbal, with a surprising fruitiness of green apple and pear, a touch of honey and hay, and the soft, soothing smell of a cup of chamomile tea. It is very diffusive but fragile, and it is used quietly in the heart of floral and herbal perfumes to add warmth.

Clary Sage

A tall sage with pale purple flowers, and softer and sweeter than kitchen sage: herbal and a little like lavender, but with a warm, musky, amber-like depth and a wine-like, hay-and-tobacco richness underneath. It matters to perfumery beyond its own smell: a waxy part of it, sclareol, is the starting point for ambroxan, the modern stand-in for ambergris.

Clary Sage Absolute (France)

Clary sage extracted with solvents rather than distilled, from French plants. The absolute is darker, denser and longer-lasting than the oil: less of the fresh herb and more of the sweet, wine-like, hay and tobacco side, with a balsamic edge.

Davana

An Indian herb, a cousin of wormwood, whose oil smells nothing like a herb at all: sweet, fruity and boozy, like dried apricots and prunes soaked in rum or bourbon, with a tea-like softness and a hint of blackcurrant. Natural perfumers treasure it because real fruit notes are so hard to get from plants, and it rounds out florals and warms the heart of a perfume.

Davana Attar

Davana made the old Indian way, as an attar: the herb is distilled with water in a copper still, and its vapour is caught in a vessel of sandalwood oil, then left to age. So it smells of davana's boozy dried fruit carried on a soft, creamy, woody base, and it lasts much longer than the plain oil.

Eucalyptus

The leaves of the Australian gum tree, and the smell of a cough sweet or a sauna: icy, camphor-sharp and medicinal at first, cooling the nose, then greener and more herbal, like crushed leaves, with a faint sweet woodiness at the end. It brings a sharp, clean freshness to aromatic and fougère perfumes.

Blue Gum Eucalyptus

The blue gum, Eucalyptus globulus, the tree most eucalyptus oil comes from: the classic cooling, camphor-sharp eucalyptus. Other species smell quite different, some of lemon and some of peppermint, so naming it says this is the familiar one.

Herbal Notes

No one herb: the green, aromatic smell of a bundle of them, rosemary, thyme, sage, mint, lavender and the like, which perfumers call aromatic notes. They smell fresh, sharp and a little bitter or camphorous, like a herb garden in the sun, and they are the backbone of fougères and colognes, especially men's.

Hops

The papery green cones of the hop plant, the flower that gives beer its bitterness and much of its smell. In perfume it is herbal, green and bitter, a little resinous and yeasty, and it can bring a whole brewery with it: fresh beer, malt and a slightly boozy, fermented air.

Juniper Berry

The small blue berries of the juniper bush, the flavour of gin, whose name comes from the Dutch and French words for juniper. The oil is fresh, piney and resinous, a little sappy and bitter, bracing and clean. It is strong, so it is used in small doses to give colognes, fougères and woody perfumes a crisp, piquant start.

Juniper Berries

No change: the plural of the same note.

Lavender

The purple flower of Provence, and the backbone of fougères and barbershop perfumes. Its smell is floral and herbal at once: clean, fresh and slightly camphorous, sweet like hay, and depending on the oil it can lean cool and minty or warm and almost spicy. The finest grows high in the mountains; lavandin, a cheaper hybrid, is sharper and more camphorous and ends up mostly in candles and soap.

Lavender (three natural oils)

Not one lavender but three natural lavender oils blended, the way PRIN lists it for Haxan: different lavenders smell different, some cool and minty, some sweet and floral, some warm and hay-like, and layering them gives a fuller, rounder lavender than any one alone.

Lavender de Provence

Lavender from Provence, in the south of France, grown high in the hills, where the finest true lavender comes from. It is sweeter, softer and more floral than the camphor-sharp lavandin grown in the lowlands, and it is what a perfumer means by a fine lavender.

Lemon Verbena

A South American shrub with long, narrow leaves that smell more of lemon than lemons do. Crushed, they are bright, sweet and zesty, lemon-fresh and clean with a green, herbal, almost tea-like softness underneath. It is uplifting and calm at once, a favourite of colognes and summer perfumes, and it lasts a little longer than true citrus.

Marjoram

Oregano's gentler cousin. Sweet marjoram oil is warm and sweet-spicy rather than green: more like nutmeg and cardamom than a leafy herb, with a soft woody, faintly medicinal warmth underneath. It is used quietly, to add warmth and herbal lift to fougères and spicy or masculine perfumes.

Mint

Cool, sharp and green: a crushed sprig from the garden. It can lean towards peppermint's icy bite, spearmint's softer sweetness, or a darker, more herbal wild mint. Perfumers long avoided it because it smells of toothpaste and mouthwash; used well, it is fresh, bright and reviving, and it is now the heart of many summer perfumes.

Peppermint

The sharp, icy mint of sweets and toothpaste: most of its oil is menthol, which smells cold and feels cold, piercing and clean.

Spearmint

The softer, sweeter mint of chewing gum: its smell comes from carvone rather than menthol, so it is greener, rounder and more herbal, and it does not cool the way peppermint does.

Myrtle

A Mediterranean shrub with glossy, fragrant leaves, sacred to Venus. Its oil is fresh and bright: green, camphorous and a little like eucalyptus, with a lemony, piney sharpness and a faint floral, fruity sweetness underneath. It is mostly a top note, and it sits in colognes and men's perfumes the way rosemary and sage do.

Oregano

The pizza herb, and in perfume stranger than you would expect: intensely herbal and resinous, green and camphorous at first, then dry, woody and a little smoky and medicinal, even leathery, because of its main molecule, carvacrol. It is rare in perfume; where it appears it gives a wild, sun-baked Mediterranean edge.

Rosemary

The needle-leaved Mediterranean herb: aromatic, pungent and camphorous, a little minty and lavender-like, clean and sharp. It was one of the first oils distilled for perfume, the heart of Hungary Water in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it still gives colognes and men's perfumes a fresh, sunlit, herb-garden feel.

Sage

Kitchen sage, the grey-green herb of stuffing and smoke-cleansing. Its oil is powerful: herbal, camphorous and slightly medicinal, with a savoury, softly peppery warmth and a resinous, cedar-like dryness. It gives energy and bite to fougères and colognes, mostly men's. It is not clary sage, which is softer, sweeter and more amber.

Salvia Absolute

Salvia is simply sage's Latin name; the difference is the absolute, sage extracted with solvents rather than distilled with steam. An absolute keeps the plant's heavier, sweeter parts that steam leaves behind, so it is richer, rounder and longer-lasting than the sharp, camphorous oil.

Thyme

The small-leaved herb of Mediterranean hillsides. Its smell is strong and rich: herbal and spicy, sharply medicinal, warm, and in a perfume surprisingly leathery. Almost all of that comes from thymol, a molecule that smells exactly of thyme and clings for days. It brings a sunbaked, rugged character to aromatic perfumes.

Wormwood

Artemisia absinthium, the bitterest herb there is, and the one that flavours absinthe and vermouth. Its smell is sharp, bitter and intensely green, herbal and a little camphorous, with a dry hint of hay and smoke. It brings a dark, rebellious edge to a perfume, and it goes well with the absinthe and anise notes it belongs with.

Yarrow

A common meadow flower whose oil comes out a startling deep blue, from azulene formed as it is distilled. It smells sharp, herbal and piney-camphorous at first, then softer: sweet, tea-like and woody, a little like chamomile, with a faint caramel sweetness. It is rare in perfume, which makes it quietly distinctive where it appears.

Crushed Leaves

The sharp green smell of a leaf torn or a stem snapped. Plants give it off the moment they are hurt, and it comes mostly from leaf alcohol, a molecule perfumers can buy on its own: intensely fresh and green, with a juicy, sappy, slightly vegetable edge. A touch of it makes flowers and fruits in a perfume smell freshly picked rather than polished.

Fig Leaf

Not the fruit but the tree: the big, rough leaves and their milky sap. It smells green and a little bitter at first, then soft and creamy, almost coconut-like and gently sweet, with a faint woodiness from the sun-warmed branches. Lightly done it is cool shade on a hot Mediterranean day; richly done it is almost edible.

Galbanum

A sticky gum from a giant fennel-like plant of Iran, and the greenest material in perfumery. It is sharp, bitter and piercing at first, like snapped stems, green peppers and pea pods, with a touch of turpentine, then softer, balsamic and woody. A few drops make a whole perfume green; it is thought to have started the whole family of green perfumes, with Balmain's Vent Vert in 1945.

Grass

The burst of smell that rises from a lawn just after mowing: torn blades and crushed stems, bright, green and sappy. Grass gives it off as a defence when it is cut, and perfumers rebuild it from those same molecules. In a perfume it can feel cool and airy, or a little bitter, metallic or earthy, and it makes an opening feel alive.

Wild Grass

No change: grass, as Pineward names it; wild only says it grows long and uncut.

Green Notes

No one plant but the family of green smells: leaves, stems, cut grass, sap, a little galbanum or violet leaf. They are crisp, sharp and alive, and even a trace of them makes a perfume feel fresher and more natural. Perfumers have leaned on them far more since the 1960s, especially in sporty and summer perfumes.

Green Accord

No change: an accord is only a smell built from several materials, and green notes are always built that way.

Green Wheat

Wheat still growing in the field, before it turns gold. It smells fresh, green and a little sweet, with the soft, nutty, cereal warmth of the grain underneath, and a hint of flour and bread. It sits between a green note and a gourmand one, a summer field rather than a bakery.

Hay

Cut grass dried in the sun, and it smells sweet rather than green: warm, herbal and faintly like vanilla and almonds, with a honey and tobacco softness. That sweetness is coumarin, which meadow grasses such as sweet vernal grass are full of. It is the heart of the fougère, and it brings summer, farms and old barns with it.

Hay Absolute

Hay extracted with solvents rather than built from molecules: a thick, dark, natural extract, warmer, sweeter and more complex than a hay accord, with honey and tobacco in it, and long-lasting.

Hay Bales

No change: hay, as Pineward names it, gathered into bales.

Ivy

The dark evergreen climber, and its smell is quiet: cool, dark green and leafy, with a dash of spice, a minty lift at the top and an earthy side like loam or bean sprouts. It gives a perfume a shaded, overgrown freshness rather than a bright one.

Climbing Ivy

No change: ivy, named by the way it grows.

Poplar Bud

The sticky, resin-coated leaf buds of the balsam poplar, which fill the air with a sweet smell as they open in spring. Extracted, they are balsamic and green, bittersweet and honeyed, with a surprising dried-fruit side of apricot and prune, a touch of propolis and soft leather. They give a forest a sweet, sunlit warmth and help a perfume last.

Poplar Buds

No change: the plural of the same note.

Poplar

No change: in perfume the poplar's smell is its sticky spring buds.

Raspberry Leaf

Nothing like the berry: the leaf smells of the forest floor rather than of sweets. It is green and leafy, like tea, with a soft, jammy fruitiness underneath, a little resinous and balsamic, even a touch leathery, like mulled wine and dried fruit. It adds a natural, shaded depth to fruity and green perfumes.

Rhubarb

The pink stalks of spring, tart and green: sour and juicy, vegetal and a little earthy, with a red-berry sweetness. The perfumer's rhubarb is usually tidier than the real thing, less sour and more fruity, but still unmistakable. It is one of perfumery's happiest notes, bright and zippy, and it sits beautifully with rose, violet and raspberry.

Sugar Cane

The tall grass sugar comes from. There is no oil of sugar cane; perfumers build it from sweet molecules, so it smells of sugar with a green, grassy freshness to it, sometimes airy like spun sugar and sometimes darker, like cane just starting to caramelise, often with a hint of almond or rum. It is a gourmand note with some sun and air in it.

Sweet Vernalgrass

A small meadow grass that flowers early in spring, and the plant that gives hay its sweet smell. It is full of coumarin, so dried it smells of fresh hay with a hint of vanilla and almond, sweet and soft. In a perfume it is hay and meadow, warm rather than green.

Sweetgrass

A sacred grass for many Indigenous peoples of North America, braided and burned as incense, and full of coumarin: it smells of fresh-mown hay and spring flowers, sweet like vanilla and almonds, with a hint of thyme and lavender. It is soft, warm and calming, hay with something holy about it.

Bison Grass

No change: bison grass is the same plant, under the name it has in Poland, where a blade of it flavours Żubrówka vodka.

Tomato Leaf

The smell left on your fingers after brushing a tomato plant: intensely green, sharp and bitter, astringent and a little spicy, vegetal and clean. It is loud, always the greenest thing in a blend, and it gives colognes and summer perfumes a bittersweet, garden-fresh shock.

Violet Leaf

The heart-shaped leaves of the violet, not its flowers, and they smell completely different: intensely green, cool and watery, strikingly like cucumber, with a slightly metallic edge and a faint flower underneath. The cucumber is real chemistry, the same molecules as the vegetable. It is the classic green of fresh, aquatic and fougère perfumes.

Watercress

The small leaves of a stream-grown salad, and they smell as they taste: bright, crisp and peppery-green, juicy and a little mustardy. In a perfume it adds a fresh, vegetal bite, like a garden rinsed with cold water.

Alpine Sandwort

A tiny white flower of the high Rocky Mountains, with five notched petals, growing in cracks of rock and stony ground where little else will. No perfume material is made from it; in Pineward's list it is part of a picture of a high mountain meadow: thin cold air, warm stone and the faint green sweetness of small white flowers.

Azure Bluet

A tiny sky-blue flower with a yellow eye, also called Quaker ladies, that carpets meadows in the eastern United States in spring. It is delicate and only faintly fragrant, and no perfume material is made from it; in Pineward's list it is one of the flowers of a mountain meadow, a soft, fresh, barely-there sweetness.

Bluebell

The wild English bluebell of spring woods. Its scent is clear, sweet, green and delicate, with a hint of honey: standing in a bluebell wood you are wrapped in a soft green-floral haze. No oil is made from it, so perfumers rebuild it, usually from hyacinth softened with other flowers and something fresh and dewy.

Bluebell Flowers

No change: the same note, written another way.

Carnation

The frilly pink of buttonholes, and a floral that smells of spice: clove above all, peppery and warm, over a soft rosy flower. That clove is literal, since carnation and clove share their main molecule, eugenol. Real carnation extract is rare and costly, and eugenol is now restricted, so it is mostly built by the perfumer. It is an old-fashioned, dandyish note, very much of the classic perfumes.

Champaca

The golden-orange flower of a magnolia tree from India and Southeast Asia, offered in temples and worn in the hair. Its absolute is one of the richest florals there is: warm, heady and honeyed, buttery and waxy, with tea, apricot and a touch of spice, a creamy, slightly animal sweetness like jasmine and orange blossom together. A narcotic, luxurious white-floral note.

Chrysanthemum

The big autumn flower, and one that smells more of leaves than of flowers: sharp, green, bitter and herbal, cool and a little camphorous, with a hint of pine and the chilly smell of a florist's fridge. It is hard to capture, so a perfume's chrysanthemum is often greener and creamier than the real thing.

Clear Orchid

ADAR's own name for an orchid made sheer. Orchids themselves smell of almost anything, and many of the ones in shops smell of nothing, so a perfume's orchid is always an invention: usually a clean, sweet, softly powdery floral, sometimes with the vanilla of the vanilla orchid. Clear here means that made transparent and light rather than creamy.

Freesia

A florist's favourite, and a flower whose real smell has never been caught in a bottle: every freesia in perfume is a reconstruction. It smells radiantly sweet and airy, clean and a little soapy, with a peppery, nose-tingling freshness, a hint of citrus and something like tea. It rarely leads a perfume; it brightens lily of the valley, peony and magnolia around it.

Gardenia

A creamy white flower with glossy leaves, and one of the most intoxicating smells in a garden: rich and buttery, but also green, dewy and almost cool, with strange mushroomy and even cheesy facets up close. No usable oil can be taken from it, so perfumers build it, mostly from tuberose and other white flowers. It reads as lush, fresh and a little old-Hollywood.

Geranium

Not the red balcony plant but the rose geranium, whose leaves are distilled. It smells like rose with a green, minty, lemony twist and none of the powder: fresh, fruity and a little sharp. It is often used in place of the far costlier rose, and it gives fougères and men's perfumes a clean, rosy lift.

Geranium (Morocco)

Geranium oil from Morocco. Each origin smells a little different: the famous Bourbon oil is rich and minty-rosy, the Egyptian sharper and more citrus, and Moroccan oil carries a molecule the others lack that adds a woody note like vetiver and grapefruit.

Goldenrod

The tall golden plumes of late-summer meadows in North America, and a major honey plant for bees. Its smell is warm and hay-like, honeyed and softly floral, with a green, herbal edge; the sweet goldenrod even smells of anise when its leaves are crushed. It is not a perfume material; in Pineward's list it paints a sunlit field at the end of summer.

Green Tea Flowers

The small white flowers of the tea plant itself, a camellia. They have little smell of their own and no oil is made from them, so the note is an impression: delicate and softly sweet, a little honeyed, with the calm green freshness of green tea around it.

Heliotrope

A small purple flower whose smell is sweet and powdery, like almond, vanilla and a little cherry: marzipan, meringue, a soft cloud. The flower cannot be extracted, so perfumers use heliotropin, a molecule with the same sweet almond softness. It is a nostalgic, comforting note, full of old face powder and the classic perfumes of the twentieth century.

Honeysuckle

The climbing hedgerow flower whose smell pours out on summer evenings: sweet and nectar-like, heady, a little like jasmine tinged with vanilla and honey, with a green freshness and a hint of pollen. It gives almost no oil, so in perfume it is nearly always rebuilt.

Japanese Honeysuckle

The species Lonicera japonica, the most widespread honeysuckle: sweetly vanilla-scented and more indolic, heavier and headier than the European hedgerow kind, strongest in the evening, when it calls the moths.

Jasmine

The great white flower of perfumery, picked by hand at dawn. It is sweet, rich and heady, fruity like banana or apricot, and with an animal warmth underneath from indole, a molecule that in large amounts smells of anything but flowers. It is one of the two pillars of perfume with rose, and almost every floral perfume holds some.

Jasmine Sambac

A different jasmine from the classic grandiflorum: Arabian jasmine, the flower of jasmine tea. It is greener, sharper and more animal, with more indole and less of the sweet fruit, and it recalls Chinese tea.

Lily

The big white lily of bouquets and funerals. It smells sweet, creamy and waxy, with a spicy warmth of clove, cinnamon and saffron, and in full bloom something almost meaty. No oil is made from it, so a perfume's lily is built, and it tends to be tidier than the flower in a vase.

Lily of the Valley

The tiny white bells of May, lucky charms in France. Their smell is fresh, green and dewy, clean and delicate: cool morning air, snapped green stems, a wet garden on a warm spring morning, with a faint sweetness. The flower is too fragile to give any oil at all, so every lily of the valley in a perfume is built by the perfumer from molecules, one of the great tricks of the trade.

Lily-of-the-Valley

No change: the same note, written another way.

Magnolia

The big, creamy flowers of the magnolia tree. They smell softly floral and creamy-sweet, a little like jasmine but lighter, with a bright, fresh lemony edge, a hint of honey and sometimes something faintly salty. There are some two hundred kinds of magnolia and they smell different, some of lemon, some of vanilla, some of violet or spice.

Marigold

Tagetes, the pungent orange marigold, and a far stranger smell than its cheerful colour suggests: a burst of crushed green leaves and bitter herbs, sharp and vegetal, then a sweet, fruity side like green apple and apricot, a little like chamomile. It is powerful and restricted, used in traces to brighten flowers and fruits and make them feel wild.

Marigold EO

EO stands for essential oil: marigold here is the real steam-distilled oil of tagetes, not a marigold accord built from other materials, so it has the plant's full pungent green, fruity strangeness.

Mimosa

The fluffy yellow pompom flowers of the silver wattle, a sign of the end of winter in the south of France. The absolute smells yellow and sunny: warm, honeyed and powdery, a little like iris and almond, with a fresh, green, almost cucumber-like facet. It is so strong that perfumers rarely use more than a trace.

Mountain Wildflowers

No single flower: the smell of a high meadow in bloom, a fantasy note of many small wild flowers together. It is sweet and aromatic, softly floral, with a green and herbal edge from the grass and leaves around them, and the clean air of altitude. It is Pineward painting a landscape rather than naming a material.

Nectar

The sugary liquid flowers make to draw in bees, imagined as a smell: sweet, thick and a little sticky, like runny honey or syrup, with a jammy richness and a floral softness around it. It is an impression rather than a material, and it makes the flowers near it feel warm and edible.

Neroli

The white blossom of the bitter orange, distilled with steam. It is fresh, green and a little bitter, citrusy and honeyed at once, clean and faintly soapy, with a touch of something metallic. It is lighter and greener than orange blossom absolute, which comes from the same flower, and it is a pillar of eau de cologne.

Neroli Blossom

No change: neroli is already the oil of the bitter orange's blossom.

Orange Blossom

The same white blossom as neroli, but taken with solvents rather than steam, so it smells richer, sweeter, warmer and headier: honeyed and heady, with a jasmine-like, slightly animal depth. Where neroli is fresh and green, orange blossom is sensual and full, and together they smell most like the flowers on the tree.

Orris

The root of the iris, not its flower: dug up, dried and stored for three years or more while its scent slowly develops, then ground and distilled. The result is one of the costliest materials in perfumery, and one of the most beautiful: soft, powdery and cool, like violets, suede and face powder, with an earthy, woody, buttery depth. It gives a perfume elegance and hush, and it helps it last.

Orris Root

No change: orris is the root of the iris already.

Iris

In perfume 'iris' almost always means orris, the dried root: the flower itself gives next to nothing. So it names the plant rather than a different material: the same soft, powdery, violet-and-suede smell.

Iris Butter

Orris in its most classic form: the dried, powdered root is distilled, and the oil sets into a pale, waxy solid, the butter. It is the most natural and complete orris, creamy and powdery, and its worth is counted by how much irone, the violet-like molecule, it holds.

Iris Pallida

The pale iris of Tuscany, the most sought-after species for orris. Its root gives the finest, most violet-like and powdery orris, and its absolute is among the most expensive materials a perfumer can buy.

Osmanthus

A tiny apricot-coloured flower from China, where it scents tea. Its absolute is fruity and leathery at once: ripe apricot and peach skin, honeyed petals and a suggestion of suede, with a tea-like softness and a violet sweetness. It is warm and golden, and quietly unusual.

Leathery Osmanthus

Not a different flower but osmanthus as ADAR presents it, with its leather side put forward: the suede that is always there under the apricot, turned up so the flower feels darker and drier.

Passionflower

The extraordinary purple flower of the passion-fruit vine. Its smell is delicate, sweet and fruity, tropical and a little like grapes, with a green, dewy freshness of cut stems. No oil is taken from it, so in perfume it is an imagined, juicy floral.

Passion Flower

No change: the same note, written another way.

Plum Blossom

The pale blossom of the Asian plum, ume, which flowers in late winter and announces spring in Japan and China. It is a soft, musky floral with a light sweetness and a faint fruitiness in the background, powdery and delicate rather than juicy.

Pollen

The golden dust at the heart of a flower, imagined as a smell: sweet, powdery and honey-like, soft and a little dusty, sometimes slightly bitter. It gives flowers a fuzzy, realistic texture, and it belongs with honey and beeswax in the smell of a hive.

Rose

The queen of perfumery and, with jasmine, one of its two pillars. Rose is a whole world: fresh petals at dawn, cool and dewy and a little lemony, or a heavy bouquet in a warm room, honeyed, jammy and spicy. It is taken two ways, distilled into rose otto or extracted into rose absolute, mostly from the damask rose and the hundred-petalled centifolia, and it takes thousands of flowers to make a little.

Red Rose

Not a different material but the rose as it is imagined in red: richer, deeper and velvety, a little peppery, where a white rose reads light and fresh. The colour of a real rose does not decide its smell, so this is a mood the perfumer builds.

White Rose

The rose imagined in white: lighter, fresher and more delicate, dewy and a little citrus, where a red rose is richer and more velvety. It is a mood the perfumer builds rather than a different oil, since a rose's colour does not decide its smell.

Rose Absolute

Rose taken with solvents rather than steam. The absolute keeps more of the living flower: deeper, honeyed and longer-lasting than rose otto, the distilled oil, which is brighter and a little spicier.

Rose de Mai

The absolute of the centifolia rose of Grasse, picked only in May: the most prized rose of all, heady yet fresh, strongly honeyed, with a hint of berries and less spice than the damask rose.

Rose Petals

No change: the rose's smell is its petals.

Moroccan Rose

Rose grown in Morocco, in the valley around Kelaat M'Gouna, where the centifolia is grown in its greatest numbers. North African roses smell warmer and deeper than European ones: honeyed and velvety, with a slight pepperiness.

Taif Rose

A thirty-petalled damask rose grown high in the mountains around Taif, in Saudi Arabia, and distilled into one of the most expensive oils in the world. It is darker, denser, spicier and more honeyed than European roses, with a touch of saffron and clove.

Bulgarian Rose Absolute

Absolute of the damask rose from Bulgaria's Valley of Roses, which grows most of the world's rose oil. It smells the most like a living rose, with a wine-like, faintly lemony freshness.

Turkish Rose Absolute

Absolute of the damask rose from Turkey: a little stronger and sweeter than the Bulgarian, with a note of dried tea leaves in it.

Snowdrops

The small, nodding white flowers that come up through the snow at the very end of winter. Up close, and especially in a large drift, they give off a faint, sweet honey smell, the nectar they make for the first bees. No oil is made from them; in a perfume they bring a cold, clean, first-flower-of-the-year sweetness.

Tiare Flower

The Tahitian gardenia, symbol of Tahiti, soaked in coconut oil to make monoi. It is heady and intensely sweet, creamy and tropical, close to gardenia and tuberose but greener and more watery-fresh. The coconut people think of belongs to monoi, not to the flower itself.

Tobacco Flower

The white, trumpet-shaped flowers of ornamental tobacco plants, which scent the garden at night. Nothing like smoke or cigars: they smell sweet and opulent, dry-floral and a little like hay and leather, with hints of violet, clove and dried fruit.

Tuberose

The most voluptuous white flower of all: a few stems can fill a room for days. Its absolute is rich, creamy and narcotic, sweet like honey and even gingerbread, green and a little medicinal like wintergreen, with coconut-milk creaminess and a warm, skin-like, almost indecent depth. It is the heart of the big white florals.

Violet

The small purple flower of spring, and the sweetest, most powdery floral there is: soft and romantic, airy and dewy, like old-fashioned sweets and face powder, a little like iris. The flower gives almost nothing, so its smell comes from ionones, molecules found in 1893 that are now in nearly every perfume; too much of them can briefly numb the nose.

Waterlily

The flat-leaved flower of ponds, imagined in a bottle: fresh, soft and watery, green and clean, a light floral floating on water. It softens aquatic perfumes and makes them feel elegant rather than marine.

White Lotus

The white form of the sacred lotus. As a note it is usually light and airy, watery and softly sweet, a floral floating on still water; extracted, the real flower turns out dense, dark and honeyed. White lotus in a perfume is nearly always the sheer, aquatic kind.

Yellow Flowers

Flowers that are literally yellow, ylang-ylang, mimosa, narcissus, frangipani, used together: sweet, waxy and a little heady, with a powdery, pollen-like softness and a sunny, optimistic brightness. It is a mood of colour more than a single flower.

Ylang Ylang

The drooping, star-shaped yellow flower of a tree from the Philippines and Indonesia, distilled in stages into different grades, the first and finest the fruitiest. It is rich, heady and sweet, buttery and custard-like, with banana, jasmine and a touch of something medicinal or rubbery. It makes white florals lush and golden.

Ylang-Ylang

No change: the same note, written another way.

Apple

The first bite of an apple: the skin breaks and the smell rises at once, watery and bright, sweet and tart together. As a note it can be crisp and green, sweet and red, or soft and warm like a baked apple with cinnamon and caramel. It is almost always built from fruity molecules, since the fruit gives no oil, and it makes a perfume mouthwatering and easy to like.

Fresh Red Apple

Red apple, freshly cut: sweeter and rounder than green apple, juicy rather than sour, with the fruit's cool freshness still in it rather than the warmth of a baked one.

Apricot

The velvety orange stone fruit. As a note it is soft and fuzzy, sweet and juicy, a little creamy and even faintly animal, like skin warm in the sun. Most of that comes from lactones, molecules that smell of peach, apricot and coconut cream, and perfumers build it from them.

Apricot Preserve

Apricot cooked down with sugar into jam rather than the fresh fruit: thicker, sweeter and deeper, sticky and caramel-edged, with less of the juicy freshness and more of the concentrated fruit.

Banana

Ripe banana, sweet and creamy, and a note that swings between fruit and sweets. Much of its smell is one molecule, isoamyl acetate, which smells of banana and pear drops and is also made when beer and cognac ferment; used heavily it turns artificial. In a perfume banana can be tropical and creamy, or boozy and dark, like banana cooked with rum.

Blackberry

The bramble fruit of late summer hedgerows: tangy and sweet at once, juicy, a little sour when not quite ripe, with a faint floral and musky side. It is always built, never extracted, and perfumers can pick its moment, fresh off the bush or dark and jammy. It brings bright, fun fruit and cuts the sweetness of gourmands.

Blackberry Jam

Blackberries cooked down with sugar: syrupy and dark, sweeter and deeper than the fresh fruit, the tartness softened and caramelised, sticky rather than juicy.

Blueberry

Small blue berries, and a note that can be refreshing and gently sweet or thick and jammy: tart and fruity with a creamy, almost vanilla softness, sometimes smelling more of blueberry muffins and pie than of the fruit. It is built by the perfumer, and it tends to make a perfume playful and edible.

Cassis

Blackcurrant, in French. The note often comes from the buds and leaves as well as the fruit: tangy, sharp and green, dark-fruited and a little woody, with a strange sulphurous edge that people honestly compare to cat's pee, which in a finished perfume becomes a bracing, lifelike tartness. It is a classic of fruity chypres.

Cherry

Sweet and tart at once, with a bitter-almond edge, because cherry and almond are cousins and share benzaldehyde, the molecule of marzipan. As a note it can be fresh and juicy, or dark, syrupy and liqueur-like. It is built rather than extracted, and it gives a perfume a red, playful, sometimes seductive sweetness.

Black Cherry

The darkest, ripest cherry: syrupy, deeper and sweeter, with more of the almond, almost like cherry liqueur, where plain cherry is brighter and tarter.

Cherry Compote

Cherries stewed with sugar, still in pieces: warm, soft and syrupy, cooked rather than fresh, sweeter and rounder than the raw fruit but less sticky than jam.

Cherry Jam

Cherries cooked down with sugar into jam: thick, dark and very sweet, with a caramelised, almost candied edge, where fresh cherry is juicy and tart.

Cranberry

The small, hard, glossy red berry, and famously sour: tart, sharp and a little bitter, with only a hint of sweetness and a faint forest greenness. A good cranberry note keeps that bite rather than sugaring it, and it brings a crisp, wintry brightness.

Dates

The fruit of the date palm, from the Middle East, sweet as candy. As a note it is a fantasy, rich and fruity-sweet, with caramel, honey and a buttery softness, like a date split open. It is rare and warm, and it sits naturally with incense, woods and spice.

Dried Fruits

Fruit dried in the sun until it is dark and sticky: dates, figs, prunes, apricots and raisins. It smells sweet, deep and chewy, a little like liquorice and brandy, less fresh and more concentrated than fresh fruit. It belongs to gourmand and boozy perfumes, where it adds a warm, Christmassy richness.

Raisin

One dried fruit in particular: the dried grape, sweet, dark and chewy, a little winey and boozy, with a creamy softness. Dried fruits is the whole family; raisin is its best-known member.

Raisins

No change: raisin in the plural.

Fig

The ripe fruit rather than the leaf: golden skin warmed by the sun, a honeyed, jammy lushness, between fruity and green. The fig tree's milky sap gives it a soft, creamy, coconut-like side, rebuilt by perfumers with lactones. It is fresh and indulgent at once, and very Mediterranean.

Goldenberry

The small orange fruit in a papery husk, also called cape gooseberry or physalis. It tastes and smells sweet and tart together, tangy and tropical, like cherry tomato crossed with pineapple, mango and a touch of vanilla. In a perfume it is a bright, unusual fruit.

Golden Berry

No change: the same note, written another way.

Green Apple

The crisp, sour green apple: tart, sharp and juicy, clean and very fresh, less sweet than red apple. Perfumers build it from fruity esters that catch its bite, and it gives a perfume an easy, bright, orchard-in-the-morning energy.

Guava

The pink-fleshed tropical fruit. As a note it is lush, sweet and juicy, with a bittersweet, lemony tang and sometimes the dry, slightly musky smell of its thick skin. Perfumers like it because that bitterness keeps a fruity perfume from getting too sweet.

Japanese Plum

Here the loquat, the small orange fruit also called Japanese plum, grown in Japan for over a thousand years. It smells and tastes slightly tangy and sweet, like apricot and pineapple with a peach-like softness: a gentle, sunny fruit.

Japanese Loquat

The same fruit named properly: the loquat, which is often called Japanese plum though it is no plum at all. Its smell is apricot, pineapple and peach rather than a plum's darkness.

Litchi

Lychee: under a rough pink shell, white, juicy flesh that smells like a very juicy grape with a delicate rose note. The rose is real chemistry, since lychee holds the same rose oxide as the flower, which is why lychee and rose are so often paired. It is watery, sweet and fresh, and it lightens a floral.

Mango

The tropical fruit: juicy and sweet, with hints of peach and plum and a lush, green, slightly peppery edge from the skin. It gives fruity florals an exotic, sunny ripeness.

Baby Green Mango

Mango picked young and unripe: not sweet and juicy but crunchy, sour and green, with the bitterness of its skin and leaves, fresh and tangy rather than tropical and lush.

Maninka

The fruit of a wild tree of the West African savannah, also called tallow plum or sweet detar, eaten fresh or dried across the Sahel. Its smell is warm and richly sweet, caramel-like, with dried fruit, brown sugar and a hint of smoke and dry wood, almost like a date: sweet, slightly resinous and ancient-feeling.

Passionfruit

The wrinkled purple fruit full of seeds and pulp. Its smell is intense and tropical: tangy and sharp, a little like grapefruit, with a jammy sweetness and a faint sulphurous burn from the real fruit. It adds a tart, exotic bite to a perfume.

Peach

A ripe peach warmed by the sun: sweet, juicy and velvety, creamy, with a touch of coconut. Its classic molecule, a lactone still sold as aldehyde C-14 although it is no aldehyde, has been in perfumes since 1908, and made Guerlain's Mitsouko. It is soft, round and a little sensual.

Pear

Juicy, sweet and watery, like apple but softer and less crisp. The fruit gives almost no oil, so pear is built from fruity, green molecules, and it can smell like the dewy bite of a ripe pear or something lighter and more transparent. It brings lightness and an appetising freshness.

Plum

The dark stone fruit, and one of perfumery's old secrets, part of the classic bases of the early twentieth century. As a note it can be tart and fresh like the skin of a plum just picked, or sweet, juicy and boozy, soaked in cognac, down to sticky, smoky prune.

Plum Tree

The plum tree rather than just its fruit: plum with some of the tree around it, a greener, woodier, less sugary plum, in the spirit of an orchard rather than a jar.

Quince

A hard, golden fruit, a cousin of apple and pear. Its smell sits between apple and pear, aromatic, a little sour and dry, with pineapple and a faint rose in it.

Raspberry

A raspberry crushed: sweet, tart and jammy, with a soft, powdery, slightly woody side. It comes mostly from raspberry ketone, a molecule the real fruit has only in traces, and it gives a perfume a bright red fruitiness and helps florals feel juicier.

Red Berries

No single berry: strawberries, raspberries, cherries and cranberries together, tangy and sweet, bright and fruity. It is a general red-fruit note, and depending on the perfume it can be fresh and crisp or syrupy.

Scorched Pineapple

Pineapple roasted until its sugars catch and darken: still juicy and tangy, but deeper, caramelised and a little smoky, fruit on the edge of burning. Pineapple's own smell already holds furaneol, a molecule that smells of caramel when concentrated, which is what the scorching brings forward.

Strawberry

Sweet, jammy, a little green and a little creamy: the strawberry is built from a handful of molecules, above all furaneol, which smells of strawberry when dilute and of caramel when strong. As a note it can be fresh and juicy, or a candied, milkshake strawberry.

Allspice

The dried berry of a Jamaican tree, named because it smells like several spices at once: cinnamon, clove and nutmeg together, sweet and dry, warm and a little peppery. It is sweeter and longer-lasting than clove, and it sits beautifully with rose and other spices, warming carnation, floral and men's perfumes.

Anise

The sweet, liquorice smell of aniseed, star anise and fennel, which share one molecule, anethole. It is sweet and warm, herbal and a little like root beer, the flavour of pastis, ouzo and liquorice sweets. In a perfume it adds a sweet, slightly medicinal spice and sits well with lavender, citrus and woods.

Black Pepper

Freshly cracked peppercorns: hot and fresh, dry and woody, almost tingling to sniff, with a citrusy lift. The oil does not burn, because the molecule that makes pepper hot does not evaporate; what you smell is its warm, woody-spicy aroma. It brightens the top of many men's perfumes and adds texture and radiance to woods and florals.

Pepper

No change: pepper in a list of notes means black pepper.

Caraway

The small crescent seeds of rye bread and aquavit. Their oil is mostly carvone, which in caraway's form smells warm, spicy and a little minty-herbal, exactly like fresh rye bread. It gives a perfume a savoury, bakery warmth, and it hides in several famous ones, Le Male among them.

Cardamom

The green pods of chai and Scandinavian buns. Its oil opens cool and fresh, a little like eucalyptus and mint, then turns warm, sweet and aromatic, spicy with a soft balsamic and floral finish. It is a fresh spice rather than a hot one, and it brightens rose, woods and ambery perfumes alike.

Guatemalan Cardamom

Cardamom from Guatemala, the finest source. Its oil holds more of the sweet, spicy ester that gives cardamom its warmth, and less of the camphor, so it is sweeter, smoother and less medicinal than Indian cardamom.

Cassia

Chinese cinnamon, the bark most 'cinnamon' in shops really is. It is almost all cinnamaldehyde, so it smells hot, sweet and cinnamon-red, rougher and less subtle than true cinnamon, with a resinous, smoky, honeyed richness that perfumers use to warm florals and ambers.

Chilli

The heat of a chilli barely has a smell, since the molecule that burns does not float in the air. As a note chilli is therefore an impression: a hot, fiery, red spice, peppery and a little green like a fresh capsicum, used to give a perfume a feeling of heat and danger.

Red Hot Chilli

Chilli named for its colour and its heat: ripe red chilli, sweeter and fruitier than a green one, with the idea of fire turned up. It is an impression rather than a different material.

Carolina Reaper

Once the world's hottest chilli, bred in South Carolina, over a million units on the Scoville scale. Its flavour is surprisingly fruity and sweet before the fire; as a note it stands for heat taken as far as it can go.

Cinnamon

The rolled bark of the cinnamon tree: warm, sweet and spicy, with a hot red bite and a soft, woody sweetness, the smell of baking and mulled wine. True cinnamon from Sri Lanka is smoother and more complex than its cheaper cousin cassia. It warms oriental, gourmand and floral perfumes.

Cinnamon (Ceylon)

True cinnamon, from Sri Lanka (once Ceylon), rather than cassia. It has less cinnamaldehyde than cassia but smells finer: smoother, sweeter and more complex, with fruity top notes, where cassia is harsher and hotter.

Cinnamon Attar

Cinnamon made as an attar, the old Indian way: distilled with water in a copper still into a vessel of sandalwood oil and left to age. So the spice comes on a soft, creamy woody base, rounder and longer-lasting than cinnamon oil alone.

Clove

The dried flower buds of the clove tree: intensely warm and spicy, sweet and woody, a little medicinal, one of the most powerful natural materials a perfumer has. Most of it is eugenol, which it shares with carnation, so clove sits behind many carnation and rose accords, as well as ambers, spices and men's perfumes.

Cloves

No change: the same note, written another way.

Coriander

The seed, not the leaf: coriander seed oil is mostly linalool, so it smells clean, soft and elegant, peppery and woody at first, then warmly floral, almost sweet like a sweet shop. It is a fresh spice that links the top of a perfume to its warmer heart, and it blends into colognes, chypres and ambers.

Cumin

The earthy spice of curries, and perfumery's most divisive one. It is sharp, green and pungent at first, then warm and resinous, and then unmistakably like skin and sweat: an intimate, animal warmth. People love it or hate it; used well it makes a perfume feel human and sensual.

Cumin Seed Oil

No change: cumin oil is distilled from the seeds anyway.

Fenugreek

Small golden seeds used in curries, and a smell that changes with strength: strong it is savoury, like curry; diluted it turns sweet, nutty and like maple syrup and burnt sugar. Both come from one molecule, sotolon. In perfume it brings a gourmand, maple sweetness with a strange, spicy edge.

Ginger

The knobbly root: warm but fresh, spicy and bracing, almost nose-tingling, with a lemony brightness at the top and a sweet, woody, almost balsamic depth. It lifts a perfume and pairs as easily with citrus and woods as with vanilla and white flowers.

African Ginger

Ginger from West Africa, prized for its quality: brighter and more dazzling than ginger from Asia, with all the fresh ginger character and none of the dustiness.

Fresh Ginger

Ginger as the freshly cut root rather than the dried, cooked spice: sharp, lemony and fizzy, bright and juicy, where ginger oil distilled from dried root is heavier and warmer.

Ginger Root

No change: ginger is a root, and its oil comes from it.

Icy Ginger

Not a different ginger but ADAR's word for it: ginger's cool, sparkling, lemony top turned up, so it feels crisp and cold rather than warm and spicy.

Nutmeg

The seed of a tropical tree, grated over custard and eggnog. Its oil is fresh and warm at once: a light, piney top, then a sweet-spicy, woody heart, a little nutty and lemony. It is a subtler warmth than cinnamon and clove, and a classic in fougères, colognes and orientals.

Pink Pepper

Not a true pepper but the pink berries of a South American tree. It is sparkling rather than hot: fresh and fruity, a little citrusy, with a rosy, woody sweetness, quite different from the tingle of black pepper. Since the mid-1990s it has become one of the most common opening notes in perfumery.

Baie Rose

No change: baie rose is simply pink pepper in French.

Saffron

The red threads of the crocus, the costliest spice in the world. Its smell is strange and beautiful: sweet and bittersweet, leathery and medicinal like iodine, with hay, honey and a faint metallic edge, from its molecule safranal. It is warm and intimate, and a signature of oriental and oud perfumes.

Indian Saffron

Saffron from India, above all Kashmir, grown in far smaller amounts than Iran's. Kashmiri threads are among the darkest and hold more safranal, the aroma molecule, and are thought richer in colour and scent.

Spices

No single spice: a blend of them, which can be warm, like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and pepper, or fresh, like ginger, coriander and cardamom. Warm spices make a perfume cosy and rich; fresh ones make it bright and tingling.

Spice

No change: the same note, written another way.

Turmeric

The golden root of curries. Its smell is warm and earthy, woody and a little like carrot, with a peppery ginger zing at the back. It is rare in perfume because it does not sweeten easily, and it brings an earthy, slightly dusty warmth.

Wasabi

The Japanese green root served with sushi, hot like mustard rather than chilli, with vapours that go straight up your nose. In perfume it is green, peppery and fresh, a tremble of sharpness that makes a green note pop, though it is hard to catch.

Water Pepper

A small wild plant of riverbanks and damp meadows, whose leaves taste sharply of pepper and give off a pungent smell when crushed. That bite comes from polygodial, not from black pepper's piperine. As a note it is a wild, green, peppery sharpness.

Almond

Sweet and bitter at once, soft and nutty: the smell of marzipan, amaretto and cherry stones. Most of it is benzaldehyde, a molecule that is nearly all of bitter almond oil and that almonds share with cherries and peach kernels. It makes a perfume feel comforting and edible, and it runs through gourmands and powdery orientals.

Burnt Almond

Almonds roasted until they catch: darker, toastier and smokier, more like praline and caramelised nuts than marzipan, with the sweet bitterness pushed towards the burnt.

Baked Apple

Apple warmed in an oven until it softens and its sugars caramelise, usually with cinnamon, clove or vanilla beside it. It smells cosy and dessert-like, sweet and juicy with a buttery, spiced warmth: autumn and a festive kitchen.

Apple Tarte Tatin Accord

An accord of a whole dessert: the French upside-down apple tart, apples caramelised in butter and sugar under a pastry lid. So it is baked apple with more caramel and buttery pastry around it, richer and darker than plain baked apple.

Balsamic Vinegar

Aged Italian vinegar made from cooked grape juice and left for years in wooden barrels: dark, thick, sweet and sour at once, fruity and winey, with a sharp tang and a woody depth. As a note it brings a strange, appetising acidity to a sweet perfume. It is not the same as a 'balsamic' note, which in perfumery means soft and resinous.

Barley

The grain of beer and whisky. As a note it is warm, toasty and cereal-like, like sun-warmed straw and husks, and when it has been malted it turns sweeter and savoury, reminiscent of beer, whisky and a little milky honey. It gives a perfume a comforting, rustic warmth.

Beeswax

The wax of the honeycomb, extracted: honeyed and sweet, warm and softly animal, with hay, tobacco and a little pollen in it, like a candle of real beeswax. It is one of the few animal notes that harms no animal, and it gives a golden, intimate warmth and helps a perfume last.

Beeswax Absolute

Beeswax as the real natural extract, taken from the wax with solvents, rather than a beeswax accord built from other materials: richer and more complex, honey, hay and tobacco together.

Black Walnut

The American walnut, whose nut hides inside a green husk that stains your hands brown. The husk smells green, earthy, citrusy and a little piney; the nut is woody, rich and slightly bitter, with a milky softness. As a note it is nutty, woody and a bit wild.

Bread

The smell of a bakery in the morning: warm crust, yeast and flour, toasty and faintly sweet. It is built from roasted, bready molecules, and it gives a perfume an intensely comforting, homely warmth.

Acorn Nut Bread

Bread made with acorn flour, an old food of hard times and foraging: nuttier, earthier and a little bitter from the acorn's tannins, darker and more woodland than wheat bread.

Brown Sugar

Sugar with some of its molasses left in: rich, soft and caramel-like, a little boozy and treacly, sweeter and deeper than white sugar. It can read as caramel, maple syrup or breakfast pancakes, and it warms gourmand perfumes.

Butter

Melted butter: rich, creamy and sweet, a dairy warmth. Its smell is mostly diacetyl, the molecule of butter and buttered popcorn, which also brings caramel. In a perfume it makes vanilla and caramel feel richer and more edible.

Butterscotch

The sweet of brown sugar and butter cooked together, with cream and a little salt: rich, sweet and buttery, toasty and caramel-like, like a boiled sweet or a pudding sauce. It is intensely gourmand and very long-lasting.

Cacao

The bean chocolate is made from, roasted and ground. As an absolute it smells rich, deep and dark: cocoa powder and hot chocolate, a little bitter and roasted, with coffee, vanilla and even boozy or slightly meaty facets, settling into a soft, powdery chocolate close to the skin.

Cocoa

No change: cacao and cocoa are the same bean; in perfume the two words mean the same note.

Dark Cocoa

Cocoa at its darkest and most roasted: more bitter, dry and smoky, less sweet, like unsweetened powder rather than a sugared drink.

Hot Cocoa

Cocoa as the warm drink: sweeter, milkier and softer, sugared cocoa powder in hot milk rather than the bare roasted bean.

Caramel

Sugar heated until it turns golden and brown: warm, sweet and a little burnt, toffee-like and comforting. In perfume it is built mostly from maltol and ethyl maltol, which smell of caramel, candyfloss and jam; ethyl maltol became famous with Thierry Mugler's Angel in 1992.

Carob Pods

The long brown pods of the carob tree, sweet enough to be used as a chocolate substitute. They smell cocoa-like and date-like, sweet and a little dusty, fruity and faintly earthy. It is a rare note in perfume.

Chantilly Cream

Crème Chantilly: cream whipped with sugar and vanilla. As a note it is creamy, sweet and vanilla-soft, a little powdery, and above all airy: dessert that feels light rather than heavy.

Chocolate

Chocolate is built in perfume more often than extracted, since cocoa absolute is costly and subtle. It can be dark, bitter and roasted, like cocoa dust and toasted beans with a hint of espresso, or milky and sweet, like a melting bar. Either way it is comforting, rich and a little indulgent.

Dark Chocolate

Chocolate at its most serious: bitter, roasted and dry, with smoke from the toasted beans and a hint of coffee, velvety and restrained rather than sugary.

Hazelnut Chocolate

Chocolate blended with roasted hazelnut, like gianduja or a hazelnut spread: creamier, nuttier and sweeter than plain chocolate, with a toasty, buttery warmth.

White Chocolate

Hardly cocoa at all: milk, vanilla and cocoa butter, pale, creamy and soft, like condensed milk and custard, sometimes with a nutty or coconut halo, where dark chocolate is roasted and bitter.

Chocolate Bar

No change: chocolate, as a bar.

Chocolate Cake

A baked chocolate cake: cocoa and chocolate with the warm, buttery, flour-and-sugar smell of sponge, sometimes with cream or icing. It is gourmand at its most homely.

Chocolate Cake (Amandină)

A particular cake: the Romanian amandină, layers of chocolate sponge soaked in rum-flavoured caramel syrup, filled with chocolate buttercream and glazed with chocolate fondant. So it is chocolate cake with rum, caramel and a hint of almond.

Cocoa Butter

The pale fat pressed from cocoa beans, the base of white chocolate and of many skin creams. It smells nothing like dark chocolate: soft, creamy and milky, faintly sweet and a little nutty, the warm, comforting smell of a cocoa-butter body lotion.

Cacao Butter

No change: the same note, written another way.

Cocoa Pod

Not the roasted bean but the fresh fruit it grows in: a freshly split husk and the wet, pale pulp around the beans. It smells green and slightly bitter, with a faint tropical sweetness, creamy yet dry, sometimes with a hint of banana leaf or fig skin: more botanical than chocolatey.

Condensed Milk

Milk cooked down with sugar until thick: sweet, gooey and warm, creamy and syrupy, with a caramelised edge. There is no milk in a perfume; it is built from lactones, soft musks and sweet molecules, and it makes a gourmand feel comforting, like childhood.

Coumarin

The molecule that smells of fresh hay and tonka beans, first found in tonka and first made in a lab in 1868. It is sweet and warm, like hay drying in the sun and like almond and vanilla, and its character shifts with the dose. Fougère Royale in 1884 built a whole family of perfumes, the fougères, on it, and it is still one of the most used materials in perfumery.

Edamame

Young green soybeans, steamed in the pod. Their smell is green, grassy and beany, a little nutty, with a mushroom-like earthiness, from hexanal and a few similar molecules. As a note it is savoury and green, an odd, fresh, vegetal touch in a sweet perfume.

Halva

The sweet made in the Middle East, the Balkans and beyond, most often from sesame paste (tahini) and sugar or honey. It smells nutty and sweet, like roasted sesame and tahini, earthy, bready and soft, dense and a little oily. It gives a gourmand a nutty, Eastern warmth.

Hazelnut

The small round nut of praline and chocolate spreads: savoury, nutty and woody, and when roasted warm, toasty and sweet, like chestnuts sold in winter streets. Fresh, it is greener. It rounds out chocolate, coffee and milky gourmands.

Holy Bread

Prosphora, the bread of the Orthodox communion: a small leavened loaf of just white flour, water, yeast and salt, made in two layers and stamped with a cross before it is baked, with prayer. It smells of plain, pale, freshly baked bread, soft and warm, and in a perfume it carries the quiet of a church with it.

Honey

Sweet, thick and golden, and more complicated than it seems: floral and waxy, with warm tobacco and even a little chocolate, and underneath an animal, almost urine-like edge that some noses catch more than others. That doubleness comes from phenylacetic acid, the molecule behind most honey notes.

Black Honey

A dark honey: deeper and more bitter, less floral, heavier and closer to molasses, with the honey's animal side stronger.

Honey Absolute

Honey as a real natural extract, taken from the honeycomb with solvents, rather than a honey accord built from molecules: thick, waxy and warm, with beeswax and hay in it.

Raw Honey

Pineward's word for honey at its most natural, unheated and unfiltered: the comb's waxy, floral side still in it rather than a clean, sugary sweetness.

Honeycomb

Honey still in its wax cells. It smells of honey and beeswax together: sweet and golden, waxy, with hay, a little pollen and a softly animal warmth, a whole hive rather than a jar.

Icing

Sugar and liquid beaten into a sweet glaze for cakes: very sweet and a little powdery, smooth, often with vanilla or lemon. It is built from sugary molecules and makes a gourmand feel like a bakery counter.

Malt

Grain, usually barley, sprouted and dried with hot air: the heart of beer, whisky and malted milk. It smells savoury-sweet, toasty and bready, like roasted barley, with a soft milky, honeyed side.

Maple

Maple syrup: sweet, warm and caramel-like, like burnt sugar and pancakes. Much of it comes from sotolon, a molecule that smells of maple syrup when faint and of fenugreek and curry when strong. It is cosy and breakfast-sweet.

Milk

Milk is never in the bottle: the note is an illusion, built from lactones, soft musks and a little sweetness, sometimes with vanilla or sandalwood. It is creamy, gently sweet and a little powdery, cosy and comforting, soft skin more than a glass of milk.

Milk Accord

No change: milk in perfume is always an accord, built from other materials.

Molasses

The dark syrup left when sugar is refined from cane: sweet but earthy, thick and burnt, like treacle and dark caramel, with a slight bitterness. It is what rum is made from, and it brings a deep, Christmassy sweetness.

Molasses Distillate

Molasses distilled: its volatile, aromatic part without the sticky sugar, drier, lighter and more rum-like than the syrup itself.

Murumuru Butter

A butter pressed from the seeds of a spiny Amazonian palm, used in skin care. Refined, it smells of almost nothing; the virgin butter is gently nutty, a little like coconut oil. As a note it is soft, creamy and skin-like.

Oat

Oats: warm, soft and a little nutty, dry like the grain and creamy like porridge or oat milk. It is a quiet, comforting, not very sweet gourmand, the smell of oat biscuits from the oven.

Oat Grains

No change: oats, named as the grain.

Oatmeal

Oats cooked into porridge: warmer, creamier and milkier than the dry grain, a little sweet, like a bowl of oatmeal with milk.

Pistachio

The green nut: savoury, nutty and green, with less milky creaminess than almond. In gourmands it often becomes pistachio ice cream, sweet and creamy; lighter versions stay airy and fresh.

Potato

The humble potato: earthy and starchy, damp soil when raw, and roasted and nutty when baked. Perfumers can use a pyrazine that smells of baked potato and roasted nuts. It is an odd, earthy, very real note.

Raisin Cookies

Biscuits baked with raisins: buttery, brown-sugary dough, warm from the oven, with the dark, sticky, winey sweetness of the raisins in it. It is Pineward's picture of a kitchen, homely and sweet.

Rice

Steamed rice, and above all basmati: warm and cosy, starchy and a little nutty, grassy and faintly earthy, with a soft, milky sweetness. Its steamed-basmati smell comes largely from a single molecule. Rice powder, another take, is powdery and soft, built with iris. It is a homely, feel-good note.

Seed Cake

An old British teacake of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, flavoured with caraway seeds, loved since the sixteenth century and in the Victorian era. It smells buttery and sweet like a pound cake, with the warm, slightly minty, rye-bread spice of caraway through it.

Sugar

Sugar itself has no smell, so perfumers build its idea: sweet, warm and faintly burnt, from molecules like maltol and ethyl maltol that smell of caramel, candyfloss and jam. It can be airy like spun sugar or dark like caramel, and it makes a perfume sweeter and more edible.

Tobacco

Dried, cured tobacco leaf, not smoke. In a perfume it is warm, sweet and honeyed, like hay, dried fruit and tea, with a little leather, cocoa and flowers: more like a humidor or a pouch of pipe tobacco than an ashtray. Strong, the absolute is dark and almost unpleasant; diluted, it becomes one of the richest notes there is.

Tobacco Absolute

Tobacco as the real natural extract, taken from cured leaves with solvents, rather than a tobacco accord built from other materials: denser and more complex, honeyed, hay-like, fruity and leathery.

Tobacco Blonde

Blond tobacco, the bright, golden leaf cured with heat, as for Virginia cigarettes, rather than dark tobacco: lighter, sweeter and more honeyed, like hay and dried fruit, with none of a dark cigar's smoke and weight.

Blonde Tobacco

Blond tobacco, the bright, golden leaf cured with heat, as for Virginia cigarettes, rather than dark tobacco: lighter, sweeter and more honeyed, like hay and dried fruit, with none of a dark cigar's smoke and weight.

Blond Tobacco

Blond tobacco, the bright, golden leaf cured with heat, as for Virginia cigarettes, rather than dark tobacco: lighter, sweeter and more honeyed, like hay and dried fruit, with none of a dark cigar's smoke and weight.

White Tobacco

Not smoke or leaf but a flower: the white blossom of a tobacco plant, sweet and opulently floral, with only a hint of hay.

Tobacco Leaf

No change: tobacco in perfume is the dried leaf already.

Soft Tobacco Leaf

Tobacco leaf made gentle: its sweet, hay-like, honeyed side put forward and its dark, leathery edge softened.

Toffee

Sugar and butter boiled until hard and glossy: sweet and buttery, with burnt sugar and a slightly smoky edge, rich and chewy, between caramel and condensed milk. It is gourmand comfort, like caramel popcorn.

Tonka

A black, wrinkled bean from South America, almost nine tenths of whose absolute is coumarin. It smells warm and sweet like vanilla, but also like hay, almond, cinnamon, praline and a little tobacco: bigger, drier and more sensual than vanilla. It is one of the great base notes of gourmands, ambers and fougères.

Tonka Bean

No change: tonka is the bean.

Tonka Beans

No change: tonka beans, in the plural.

Vanilla

The cured pod of a climbing orchid, and the most loved note in perfumery. Real vanilla absolute is dark and rich: sweet and creamy, but also smoky, woody, boozy and a little animal, opening dark and settling powdery and soft. Most vanilla in perfume is vanillin, its main molecule, sweeter and simpler. It warms and softens everything it touches.

Bourbon Vanilla

Vanilla of the Bourbon type, grown on Madagascar, the Comoros and Réunion (once Île Bourbon): the classic, rich vanilla, creamy, sweet and hay-like, smoky and deep. The name is the islands, not the whiskey.

Madagascar Vanilla

Vanilla from Madagascar, the world's largest grower and the heart of the Bourbon type: rich, creamy and sweet, more concentrated than the floral vanilla of Tahiti.

Vanilla Absolute

Vanilla as the real extract from cured pods, rather than vanillin: darker and far more complex, sweet and creamy but also smoky, woody, boozy and a little animal.

Vanilla Caviar

The tiny black seeds scraped by hand from inside the vanilla pod, the richest part of it: vanilla at its most concentrated, sweet and deep.

Vanilla Sauce

Vanilla as custard sauce, crème anglaise: milk, sugar and egg yolks cooked slowly with vanilla. So it is creamier, eggier and more milky-sweet than vanilla alone, a pudding rather than a pod.

Wheat

The grain of bread: soft, warm and nutty, cereal-like and almost skin-like, like flour-dusted hands and warm loaves. It sits in gourmands and ambers, where it adds a quiet, snuggly warmth.

Wheat Absolute

Wheat as a real natural extract, taken with solvents: denser and warmer than a wheat accord, toasty, bready and faintly sweet, like the inside of a mill.

Bran Wheat

Wheat bran, the hard outer layer of the grain: drier, rougher and toastier than the flour, like bran cereal and husks rather than soft bread.

Absinthe

The green spirit of fin-de-siècle Paris, made from wormwood, anise, fennel and other herbs. As a note it is cool, aromatic and faintly intoxicating: liquorice and anise over the bitter, green, camphorous bite of wormwood, like gin with liquorice in it. It adds a green haze and a slightly dangerous, poetic mood.

Amaretto

The Italian liqueur, bitter by name but sweet in fact, made with apricot kernels for their almond taste. As a note it is sweet, nutty and boozy, marzipan with a slightly bitter edge and a burnt-sugar roundness; the alcohol fades after a while, leaving a soft almond sweetness.

Coffee

Freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee: dark, roasted and bitter, nutty and a little chocolatey, oily and rich, like opening a bag of beans. It wakes up a gourmand and deepens woods, and it tends to fade sooner than you would think.

Coffee CO2

Coffee extracted with carbon dioxide under pressure rather than distilled with steam: no heat, so the extract keeps the true smell of the roasted bean, dense, oily and very realistic, with chocolatey and nutty facets.

Cognac

The French brandy, aged in oak: warm, golden and smooth, with a honeyed sweetness, dried fruit like prunes and raisins, a touch of candied orange peel, and the dry, tannic wood of the barrel. It gives a perfume a slow, glowing, boozy warmth, softer than whisky.

Brandy

Brandy is the whole family of spirits distilled from wine; cognac is one brandy, from the Cognac region, double-distilled and aged in oak. As a note brandy is broader and a little rougher and fruitier, where cognac is smoother and more polished.

Cola

The soft drink, and a note built the way the drink is flavoured: citrus peel, lime and orange, cinnamon and a touch of nutmeg and coriander, over vanilla and caramel. It smells sweet, tangy and a little spicy, nose-tickling and nostalgic.

Green Tea

Unoxidised tea leaves: fresh, green and softly bitter, clean and calm, with a faint sweetness. The note is mostly built, often with citrus and a little jasmine around it; Bulgari's green tea perfume of 1992 made it a perfumery classic, fresh and airy.

Herbal Tea

An infusion of herbs and flowers rather than of the tea plant: chamomile, mint, linden, mountain herbs. It smells soft, green and slightly sweet, herbal and a little floral, like the steam rising from a cup, soothing and quiet.

Jasmine Tea

Green tea scented with jasmine flowers, usually jasmine sambac. It smells of green, slightly bitter, astringent tea with a sweet, fresh jasmine floating over it, delicate and comforting, like steam from a cup.

Lapsang Souchong

A Chinese black tea whose leaves are dried over a pinewood fire. It smells intensely smoky, woody and resinous, almost like bacon or a campfire, with the dark tea underneath. In a perfume it brings smoke and warmth, and it pairs with leather, honey and woods.

Lapsang Souchong Tea

No change: lapsang souchong is a tea already.

Liquor

The general idea of a spirit or liqueur: the warm, aromatic sting of alcohol, sometimes dark and mellow like aged spirits in oak, sometimes sharp and sweet like a fruit liqueur. It sits naturally with amber, woods and tobacco, and makes a perfume feel intoxicating.

Black Cherry Liquor

A particular liqueur: dark cherries steeped in spirit, sweet, syrupy and boozy, with cherry's almond edge, rather than spirit in general.

Masala Chai

Indian spiced tea: black tea brewed with milk, sugar and spices like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, clove and black pepper. As a note it is sweet, spicy and milky, warm and deeply comforting.

Maté

The South American tea of yerba maté leaves, sipped from a gourd. Its absolute smells like dried, slightly roasted green tea, with hay, herbs and a sun-baked, tobacco-like warmth. It is used in fougères, chypres and tea and tobacco perfumes.

Maté Tea

No change: maté is a tea already.

Moroccan Tea

North African mint tea: gunpowder green tea brewed with spearmint and plenty of sugar. It smells fresh, green and minty, sweet and a little tannic, clean and refreshing.

Moroccan Tea Absolute

Moroccan tea as a real extract, taken with solvents, rather than an accord of tea and mint: denser and more natural, with more of the dry tea leaf and hay under the mint.

Oolong Tea

The half-oxidised tea between green and black. As a note it is warm and toasted, earthy and sometimes smoky, with a soft, creamy, almost milky smoothness and a gentle herbal side, like the steam from a freshly poured cup.

Root Beer

The North American soft drink once made from sassafras and sarsaparilla roots. Its smell is spicy, creamy, earthy and sweet: wintergreen and a little mint, vanilla, liquorice and anise, with warm spices.

Rum

The spirit of the sugar cane: warm cane sugar and dark molasses, oak barrels and a sweet heat, sometimes with vanilla, clove, ginger or ripe fruit in it. It gives a perfume an amber, slightly wicked glow and smooths the notes around it.

Rhum Agricole

Rum from the French Caribbean made from fresh sugar-cane juice rather than molasses: grassier, fresher and more vegetal, less dark and treacly than ordinary rum.

Soda Bubbles

Fizz rather than a flavour: the prickle of bubbles rising from a glass of soda. Perfumers make it with sparkling aldehydes and airy musks, and it makes the top of a perfume feel effervescent and tingly.

Sparkling Water

Water with bubbles in it: clean, cold and fizzy, with a faint mineral sharpness. As a note it is an effect, made with aldehydes and musks, and it gives a perfume a bright, prickling, effervescent freshness.

Tea

Tea leaves, dry or steeped: slightly tannic and bitter, fresh or dark, a little like hay and dried leaves, calm and grounding. It is mostly built by the perfumer from a handful of materials, and it balances sweetness and powder with its dry, astringent edge.

Black Tea

Fully oxidised tea, the everyday black tea: darker, maltier and more tannic than green tea, with a dried-leaf, slightly smoky depth.

Amber Oud

Oud wrapped in amber: the dark, woody, sometimes animal smell of agarwood made sweeter and warmer by an ambery, resinous, vanilla-soft base. Together they read like honey and spice, dry wood and a glowing, velvety warmth, a pairing much loved in Middle Eastern perfumery.

Amberwood

Not a tree but a family of modern synthetic woody-ambers, the best known sold as Amberwood or Boisambrene. They are very dry, diffusive and extremely long-lasting, with a warm, ambergris-like shimmer, and to many noses sharp, fuzzy or a little screechy. They are behind the huge, long-lasting woody trail of many recent perfumes.

Amyris

The oil of a small Caribbean tree, often called West Indian sandalwood though it is no sandalwood at all. It smells soft and creamy-woody, sweet and balsamic, a little smoky with a vanilla finish, and it is used as an affordable stand-in for sandalwood and a gentle fixative.

Bark

The skin of a tree: dry, dusty and woody, a little earthy and resinous, like rough bark warmed in the sun. It is an impression built from woody materials, and it makes a woody perfume feel outdoors rather than polished.

Birch

The white-barked tree of northern forests. Its leaves and buds smell green; its bark and wood, and above all the tar distilled from them, smell smoky, leathery and a little like wintergreen. Birch is the traditional scent of Russian leather, and in a perfume it brings smoke, leather and cold forest.

Cashmeran

A synthetic molecule named for the feel of cashmere: musky and woody at once, dry and 'woolly' like a new jumper, powdery and a little spicy and piney, with a clean, sun-warmed, skin-like saltiness. It makes a perfume feel soft and cosy.

Cedarwood

The wood of pencils and cedar chests: dry, clean and woody, like pencil shavings, with a resinous, slightly smoky warmth. Perfumers use several cedars, and they differ: Virginian is clean and smooth, Atlas warmer and balsamic, Himalayan creamy. It is one of the most used woods in perfumery, a dependable, grounding base.

Cedar

No change: cedar and cedarwood mean the same note.

Atlas Cedar

True cedar from the Atlas mountains of Morocco: warmer, sweeter and more balsamic than Virginian cedar, with the smell of pencil shavings and a slightly smoky, 'dirty' depth.

Himalayan Cedar

The deodar cedar of the Himalayas: creamier and softer than the others, almost like wood and milk mixed, with a smoky edge.

Cedar Wood Tincture

Cedar soaked in alcohol until the alcohol takes its smell, rather than distilled: the oldest, gentlest way of extracting, which keeps a softer, rounder, more natural cedar.

Cedar Planks

Cedar as cut boards in a workshop: fresh sawn wood and pencil shavings, drier and rawer than a polished cedar oil.

Blood Cedar

Pineward's own name, not a standard material: it points to cedar's red heartwood, a darker, deeper, more resinous cedar than the pale, clean kind.

Cypriol

The root of an Indian sedge, nagarmotha, and a chameleon: spicy at first, like cinnamon, then earthy and green like vetiver, then woody like cedar, with a smoky breath of frankincense and campfire. It is often used to rebuild the smell of oud.

Cypriol Oil or Nagarmotha

No change: cypriol and nagarmotha are two names for the same oil.

Nagarmotha

No change: nagarmotha is cypriol's Indian name.

Edelwood Oil

No perfume material by this name could be found: it seems to be Pineward's own name, in Gristmill, for an oil of fine, polished wood ('edel' is German for noble). Beside Gristmill's mahogany, sawdust and walnut, it reads as oiled, varnished woodwork: smooth, warm and a little nutty.

Guaiac Wood

The wood of a South American tree, distilled into a thick oil: smoky and woody, like a campfire or incense, but mellow, round and sweet, with balsamic, rosy, vanilla and tobacco facets and a tarry, leathery edge. There is nothing light about it; it gives a perfume dark, smooth depth.

Guaiac

No change: guaiac is short for guaiac wood.

Mahogany

The rich, red furniture wood. As a note it is velvety and refined, deep and woody with a faint smokiness and a touch of caramel, like freshly sanded fine wood. It is rare in perfumery and usually built by the perfumer.

Moldy Cedarwood

Cedar gone damp and mildewed: the dry, clean pencil wood turned musty, earthy and a little mushroomy, like an old chest in a wet cellar or a coffin in the ground. It is Tombstone's picture of decay.

Oak

The great hardwood of forests and barrels: dry, woody and grounding, a little sharp and sour, with a soft hint of vanilla and dried fruit from its aged wood. Aged in oak, spirits take on its smell, and in a perfume it can read as whisky and barrels.

Oakwood

No change: oak and oakwood mean the same note.

Oud

Agarwood: the dark, resin-soaked heartwood of the aquilaria tree of South and Southeast Asia, formed only when the tree is infected and defends itself. It is one of the costliest materials on earth, and one of the strangest: deep, woody and smoky, sweet and balsamic, and often intensely animal, even barnyard, with fruity, leathery and medicinal sides. Where it grows changes it greatly.

Agarwood (Oud)

No change: agarwood and oud are the same material.

Assam Oud

Oud from Assam, in India: the classic, animal oud, deep and intense, earthy, leathery and smoky, with the barnyard funk it is famous for.

Cambodian Oud

Oud from Cambodia: sweeter and fruitier than Indian oud, with notes of berry jam, honey, dried fruit and resin over the wood, less animal.

Laotian Oud

Oud from Laos: rugged wood and zesty herbs, sometimes close to Cambodian or Thai oud in its opening.

Malaysian Oud

Oud from Malaysia: sweeter, more floral and fruity than Indian oud, green and 'jungle'-like, sometimes peppery.

Thailand Oud

Oud from Thailand, often from the same tree as Cambodian: woody, balsamic, leathery and smoky, with warm animal accents and sometimes fruity or incense-like sides.

Vietnamese Oud

Oud from Vietnam, known for sharp camphor-like blasts over the wood, with a sweet, resinous depth.

Clean Bright Oud

ADAR's description of an oud without the barnyard: its clean, woody, resinous side, lighter and brighter than the animal ouds of India.

Smoky Oud

Oud with its smoky side put forward: burning wood and incense over the resinous agarwood.

Rotting Wood (Oud)

Pineward naming oud by where it comes from: agarwood forms when the tree is infected by a mould and the wood rots and fills with resin, so its smell holds something of damp, decaying wood.

Patchouli

The leaves of a bushy mint-family plant from Southeast Asia, dried and distilled. Patchouli is earthy and woody, dark and damp like a forest floor, sweet and balsamic, a little camphorous and chocolatey, and very long-lasting. It carried the hippie perfumes of the 1960s and is the backbone of chypres and many modern perfumes.

Patchouli (Aceh)

Patchouli from Aceh, in northern Sumatra: Indonesia grows nearly all the world's patchouli, and Aceh's is the classic, full, earthy-sweet oil.

Patchouli Aceh

Patchouli from Aceh, in northern Sumatra, where the classic oil comes from: full, earthy and sweet.

Dark Patchouli

The dark oil distilled in iron stills, deep gold to brown: richer, earthier and smokier than light, refined patchouli, with a more complex, lasting dry-down.

Petrified Driftwood

Wood washed by the sea until it is bleached and hard as stone: a dry, woody note with a salty, mineral, seaside edge, the smell of a beach where the wind carries salt, with none of the tropics in it.

Pineboard

Freshly cut pine boards: the strong smell of sawn pine, sticky with resin, a little like turpentine, sweet and sharp, the smell of a timber yard.

Sandalwood

The heartwood of a slow-growing tree, sacred in India. Its oil is creamy, milky and soft, sweet and warm, rich and smooth, the smoothest wood there is. The famous sandalwood of Mysore has been nearly exhausted, so most sandalwood today is Australian or built from synthetics.

Mysore Sandalwood

Indian sandalwood from Mysore, Santalum album: the legendary one, the creamiest, milkiest and richest, now almost gone from perfumery because the trees ran out.

Australian Sandalwood

A different species, Santalum spicatum: rawer, earthier and sharper than Indian sandalwood, with less of its creamy softness.

Sawdust

The fine dust of a sawmill: soft, creamy and nutty wood, a little powdery and green, like freshly cut timber and pencil shavings.

Teak Wood

The dense tropical wood of boat decks and garden furniture. As a note it is a 'blond' woody fantasy, warm and a little smoky, with an old-leather side from the wood's resin. It is built by the perfumer.

Vetiver

The long, tangled roots of an Indian grass, distilled into one of perfumery's great materials: earthy and woody, smoky and a little green, like damp soil and roots, cool and deep. Where it grows changes it: Haiti's is clean and bright, Java's smoky, Réunion's smooth and sweet.

Absolute Vetiver

Vetiver as an absolute, extracted with solvents rather than distilled: thicker and denser, with more of the dark, earthy root.

Bourbon Vetiver

Vetiver from Réunion (once Île Bourbon): smoother and sweeter, with a rosy note, once the finest and now rare.

Haitian Vetiver

Vetiver from Haiti, where about nine tenths of the world's vetiver oil comes from: the cleanest and brightest, green, sweetish and even a little floral.

Vetiver (Haiti)

Vetiver from Haiti, the largest source: clean, bright and green, sweeter and lighter than the smoky vetiver of Java.

Willow Bark

The bark of the riverbank willow, which holds salicin, the forerunner of aspirin. It smells like peeling a twig by the water: wet wood and cool green sap, a little bitter, with a sharp, medicinal, almost wintergreen edge.

Woody Notes

No single wood: the whole family of them, from cedar and sandalwood to vetiver, patchouli and oud. Woods can be dry and pencil-like, creamy and soft, or smoky and tarry; they form the base of most perfumes and hold everything above them.

Dry Wood

Wood at its driest: dusty, papery and a little smoky, like sun-dried timber in a desert, with none of the creaminess of sandalwood.

Black Hemlock

Not the poisonous herb but the hemlock tree, a tall conifer of old, damp forests. Its needles smell green and resinous, like pine, fir and spruce at once but gentler: cooler and darker than spruce, less sweet than fir, a little fruity like apple, with a mossy, damp undertone, the understory of an old forest in the early morning.

Black Hemlock Needles

No change: the hemlock's smell is its needles.

Cedar Leaf

Not true cedar but the leaves of thuja, the white cedar of North America. Its oil is sharp, fresh and green, camphorous and herbal, with a woody, slightly medicinal edge from thujone; it is strong and used in small amounts to freshen woody notes.

Cedar Leaf (Thuja)

Naming the tree it really comes from: cedar leaf oil is distilled from thuja, a cypress-family tree, not from a true cedar, so it is green and camphorous rather than dry and pencil-like.

Cypress

The tall, dark, candle-shaped tree of Mediterranean hills and cemeteries. Its oil is fresh and resinous, dry and green, a little camphorous and piney, turning clean and woody, like clear forest air. It adds lift and structure to colognes, fougères and chypres.

Coastal Cypress

Pineward's picture of cypress growing by the sea: the same fresh, resinous tree with salty coastal air around it.

Emerald Cypress

Pineward's name for a greener, brighter cypress: its fresh, leafy side put forward over the dry wood.

Fir

The Christmas tree of Europe and North America: soft needles and sticky resin. Fir smells sweet and balsamic, green and resinous, a little spicy, softer and sweeter than pine, and its balsam absolute is one of the warmest, deepest forest materials a perfumer has.

Noble Fir

Abies procera, a large fir of the Pacific Northwest, a favourite Christmas tree: fresh, clean and resinous-green.

Silver Fir

Abies alba, the fir of the European mountains: its needle oil is balsamic and resinous, a clean, classic forest smell.

Subalpine Fir

Abies lasiocarpa, which grows high in the Rocky Mountains: fresh, sweet and balsamic, a little spicy and citrusy, with a camphorous edge in its crushed needles.

Balsam Fir

Abies balsamea, the North American fir named for its sweet balsam: softer and sweeter than other firs, balsamic and resinous.

Fir Balsam

Not the needles but the resin of the balsam fir, taken as an absolute: rich, sweet and balsamic, deep and forest-like, warmer and heavier than needle oil.

Momi

Abies firma, the momi fir of Japan: a gentle forest smell with a citrusy green freshness and a soft resin.

Juniper

The shrubby conifer, its wood and needles as well as its berries: fresh, balsamic and piney, sappy and a little bitter, with a gin-like brightness and a dry woody side. Some junipers, like the red cedar of Virginia, give a dry, pencil-like wood.

Juniper Needles

Juniper's needles and twigs rather than its berries: greener, drier and more piney, with less of the berries' gin-like sweetness.

Juniper Scales

The flat, scale-like leaves some junipers have instead of needles, like cypress foliage: drier and more cedar-like, less sharp and green than juniper needles.

Larch Cones

The small, egg-shaped cones of the larch, a conifer that turns gold and drops its needles in autumn. The tree smells fresh and fruity-resinous, and its cones add a dry, woody, slightly sweet resin to Pineward's picture of the forest.

Nootka

The Nootka cypress, or yellow cedar, of the Pacific Northwest. Its wood smells powerfully of cedar and cypress, warm and spicy, with a surprising grapefruit brightness: nootkatone, the molecule behind grapefruit's bitterness, was named after this tree.

Pine

The classic evergreen: pine needles smell fresh and icy, a little like menthol, herbal and balmy, bright and green, the smell of Christmas and of cleaning products. It gives woody and masculine perfumes a fresh, outdoors lift.

Pine Tree

No change: pine, named as the tree.

Scotch Pine

Pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine of northern Europe: its needle oil is zesty, fresh and almost lime-like, with an earthy side.

Mugo Pine

The dwarf mountain pine of the Alps: its oil, from wild needles picked high up, is fresh, clear, herbal and woody.

Pine Needles

The needles rather than the wood: green, sharp and fresh, resinous and a little citrusy, like needles crushed on a forest path. It is the brightest, most outdoor side of the pine.

Pine Needle

No change: pine needle in the singular.

Dried Needles

Pine needles dried on the forest floor in the sun: warmer, sweeter and dustier, a little like hay, less sharp and green than fresh ones.

Frozen Pine Needles

ADAR's picture of pine needles in the frost: the cold, sharp, menthol-like side of pine made icy.

Ponderosa Needles

Needles of the ponderosa pine of the American West, a tree whose sun-warmed bark famously smells of vanilla and butterscotch: pine with a warm, sweet side.

Ponderosa Pine Needles

Needles of the ponderosa pine, the western pine whose bark smells of vanilla and butterscotch in the sun: resinous pine with a sweet warmth.

Snoqualmie Forest Evergreens

Pineward's picture of the evergreen forests around Snoqualmie, in the Cascade mountains of Washington, where Douglas fir, western hemlock and western red cedar grow thick and wet. It smells of all of them together: resinous fir, damp hemlock and cedar in the rain.

Spruce

The tall, sharp-needled Christmas tree of the north. Spruce smells green, woody and balsamic, with a sweetish undertone; black spruce is darker, fir-like and coniferous. It is used less often than pine or fir, which makes it quietly distinctive.

Tamarack

The American larch, a conifer of northern bogs that turns gold and loses its needles each autumn. Its needle oil smells fresh and fruity, green and resinous.

Amber

Not the fossil stone and not ambergris, though it borrows the name. Amber in perfume is an idea built by hand: labdanum, benzoin and vanilla melted together, sometimes with other resins and balsams. It smells warm, sweet and golden, resinous and powdery, soft and a little like caramel, the glow at the base of a whole family of perfumes called ambers or orientals.

White Amber

A paler amber: the warm accord made lighter and cleaner, with musks and a drier, airier ambery side in place of the full, sticky sweetness of labdanum and vanilla.

Mineral Ambers

ADAR's word for the ambers in Amber Zero: not the sweet, resinous amber but a drier, stony, saltier kind, nearer to the ambergris side of the name than to vanilla and labdanum.

Balsam

The sweet, sticky, fragrant resins some trees give when cut: Peru and Tolu balsams, benzoin and styrax among them. Balsamic notes smell warm, soft and sweet, a little like vanilla and cinnamon, resinous and slightly smoky; they sit low in a perfume, round off its edges and make it last.

Benzoin

A resin that hardens in tears on the bark of styrax trees in Southeast Asia, from Laos and Thailand to Sumatra. It smells sweet, warm and vanilla-like, balsamic and powdery, with a touch of caramel and a faint cinnamon; it is one of the three pillars of an amber accord, a classic fixative, and is burned in church incense.

Siam Benzoin

Benzoin from Styrax tonkiniensis of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, once called Siam. It is the finer, softer kind, rich in vanillin: sweeter and more vanilla-like, less smoky and harsh than benzoin from Sumatra, which carries more cinnamic warmth.

Siam

Short for Siam benzoin, the benzoin of Laos and Thailand: the softest and most vanilla-like benzoin, less smoky than the Sumatran.

Dragon's Blood

A deep red resin from the fruit of rattan palms and from dragon trees, used for centuries as a dye, a varnish and a medicine. The resin itself smells of very little, so perfumers build it: warm, sweet and resinous, amber-like and a little spicy, with a dark, leathery, smoky edge to match the colour.

Dragon’s Blood Resin

No change: dragon's blood is a resin; the word only says so.

Elemi

A soft resin from Canarium trees of the Philippines, used by the Egyptians in embalming. It smells bright and fresh: lemony and peppery at first, then balsamic, a little like frankincense but lighter and greener. It lifts the top of a perfume and bridges citrus into resins.

Frankincense

The gum of Boswellia trees in Somalia, Oman and Ethiopia, burned in temples and churches for thousands of years. Its oil smells fresh and lemony, a little pine-like and peppery, over a dry, balsamic resin; burned, it becomes the cool, smoky, silvery smell of a church. It is the backbone of most incense notes in perfume.

Olibanum

No change: olibanum is frankincense's other name, from the Latin.

Olibanum Absolute

Frankincense taken with solvents instead of distilled: the absolute keeps the resin's heavier parts, so it is sweeter, deeper and more balsamic, and less sharp and lemony than the oil.

Incense

The smoke of resins and woods burned for their smell, and in a perfume the idea of it. Church incense is mostly frankincense, with myrrh, benzoin and sometimes sandalwood, smouldering on charcoal: dry, smoky and resinous, cool and a little lemony and peppery, stony, like the air in an old church after a service.

Labdanum

The sticky resin of the rockrose, a shrub of the dry Mediterranean hills; it was once combed from the beards of goats that had grazed on it. Labdanum smells deep, warm and sweet, ambery and leathery, a little honeyed and animal, like warm skin. It is the heart of amber accords and of the chypre.

Labdanum Absolute

Labdanum taken from its gum with solvents: an absolute, thicker and darker, more amber and caramel-like and more balsamic than the oil distilled from the leaves.

Spanish Labdanum

Labdanum from Spain, where most of the world's rockrose is now gathered: the classic warm, deep, amber-and-leather labdanum, named for where it comes from.

Myrrh

The gum of the Commiphora tree of Somalia, Ethiopia and Yemen, one of the three gifts of the Magi, used in incense and embalming. Myrrh is bitter and warm, balsamic and slightly medicinal, with a strange, cool, mushroom-like dampness and a soft sweetness underneath; darker and earthier than frankincense.

Bitter Myrrh

True myrrh, named bitter to set it apart from sweet myrrh, which is opoponax: the bitter, medicinal, mushroomy myrrh rather than the sweet, warm one.

Opoponax

Sweet myrrh: the resin of a myrrh tree of Somalia. It smells warmer, sweeter and softer than myrrh, balsamic and powdery, a little honeyed and slightly animal, round and cosy where myrrh is bitter and cool. It deepens ambers and orientals.

Sweet Myrrh

No change: sweet myrrh is opoponax's other name.

Peru Balsam

A thick, dark balsam from a tree of Central America, mostly El Salvador, despite the name. It smells sweet, warm and rich, like vanilla and cinnamon, soft and balsamic; it gives ambers and gourmands a creamy warmth. It is also a well-known allergen, so perfumers use it carefully.

Balsam of Peru

No change: Peru balsam, written the other way round.

Ponderosa Resin

The resin of the ponderosa pine of the American West, a tree whose bark smells of vanilla or butterscotch when the sun warms it. Its resin is piney and resinous, with that sweet, vanilla warmth running under it.

Propolis

Bee glue: the resin bees gather from tree buds and bark and use to seal their hive. It smells resinous and balsamic, warm and a little honeyed and waxy, with the green, sticky smell of poplar buds, the smell of the inside of a hive.

Resins

The whole family of hardened tree saps: frankincense, myrrh, benzoin, labdanum and more. Perfumers extract them with solvents into resinoids. Together they smell warm, sweet and balsamic, a little smoky and sticky; they sit at the base of a perfume, hold it together and make it last.

Resin

No change: resin in the singular.

Smoky Resins

ADAR's words for resins with smoke in them, as they smell when burned: drier and darker, closer to incense than to the sweet, balsamic resin.

Rum Resin

Pineward's pairing of rum and resin: rum's sweet, boozy warmth, like molasses and dark sugar, poured over warm, balsamic tree resin, so the resin smells syrupy and a little spirited.

Sandarac

A pale resin from the sandarac tree, a cypress of Morocco and North Africa, used for centuries in varnish and as incense. It comes in small, pale yellow, dusty tears and is only faintly aromatic: a quiet resin whose smell is compared to balsam.

Sandarac Resin

No change: sandarac is a resin; the word only says so.

Sawn Resin

ADAR's picture of resin laid bare when resinous wood is cut: the fresh, sharp, sappy smell of the saw going through, resin and sawdust together.

Styrax

The balsam of the sweetgum tree, from Turkey and Central America; not to be confused with benzoin, whose trees share the name. Styrax smells balsamic and sweet, with a smoky, leathery, spicy side and a sharp edge like rubber or cinnamon; it deepens leathers and ambers.

Tolu Balsam

A balsam from a tree of Colombia, named after the town of Tolú. It smells sweet and warm, of vanilla and cinnamon, soft, gentler and lighter than its cousin Peru balsam; it rounds out ambers and gourmands.

Turpentine

The oil distilled from pine resin, the painter's solvent. It smells sharp and piney, resinous and bright, cold and a little like a solvent: the smell of an artist's studio or a freshly tapped pine. In perfume it gives a raw, resinous freshness.

Ambergris

A waxy lump made in the gut of the sperm whale, around the beaks of the squid it eats, then cast out to float on the sea for years before it washes up on a beach. Fresh, it smells faecal; aged by sun and salt water, it turns into one of the most prized smells there is: sweet, earthy and marine, like seaweed, tobacco and sandalwood, musky and radiant, and to some like the wood of an old church. It makes a perfume glow and last. The trade is banned in many countries, so the note is almost always built from molecules now.

Pacific Ambergris

Pineward names its ambergris after the Pacific, the ocean it floats on before it reaches a shore: the same sweet, salty, marine material, with the sea around it put forward.

Ambrette

The seeds of the musk mallow, a relative of hibiscus from India. They smell of musk without any animal: sweet, soft and floral, somewhere between amber and musk, a little nutty and green at first, with a pear-like fruitiness and a powdery, iris-like warmth underneath. It has long stood in for animal musk.

Animal Notes

The smells of animals, and of the animal in us: once taken from the musk deer, the beaver, the civet and the sperm whale, now almost always made in the laboratory, or taken without harm from things like hyrax stone and goat hair. They smell warm, dirty and close: skin, fur, leather, the barnyard. In a trace they give a perfume depth and a sensual pull; what one person finds natural, another finds unbearable.

Botanical Musk

Musk from plants rather than animals or the laboratory: seeds and roots that happen to make musky molecules of their own, above all ambrette, the musk mallow seed, and angelica root. It smells soft, warm and skin-like, cleaner and greener than animal musk.

Castoreum

A secretion of the beaver, which it uses to mark its territory, once taken for perfume and now nearly always rebuilt from other materials. Undiluted it is sharp and tarry, like birch tar and Russian leather; diluted it becomes warm and sweet, leathery and musky, a little fruity. Its smell depends on what the beaver ate, birch, willow and poplar among it, and it sits at the heart of leather and chypre perfumes.

Castoreum Absolute

Castoreum taken as an absolute, with solvents: more concentrated and longer-lasting than a tincture, its leathery, tarry warmth at its fullest.

Civet

A secretion of the civet cat, once gathered for perfume and now replaced by civetone, the molecule that gives it most of its smell. On its own it is pungent and faecal, like urine and fat; in a trace, diluted, it turns sweet, warm and radiant, and makes the flowers around it deeper, richer and more alive. Vintage perfumes used the real thing; the civet in a perfume today is synthetic.

Costus

A root whose oil smells like unwashed hair: a scalp warmed by the sun, a cat's fur, a wet dog, a goat. Under that animal warmth it is soft and powdery like orris root, creamy and fatty, even a little like violets at first. Natural costus is now banned in perfume, as the plant has become endangered, so perfumers rebuild it.

Goat Hair

The hair of a billy goat in rut, steeped in alcohol as a tincture: an animal note natural perfumers can take without harming the animal. It smells warm and musky, of fur and animal, and next to castoreum it turns into the smell of a farmyard. Haxan uses it.

Goat Hair Tincture

No change: goat hair is used in perfume as a tincture, the hair steeped in alcohol; the word only says how.

Hyrax

Africa stone: the droppings of the rock hyrax, a small animal of Africa, hardened and aged into stone, and collected without harm. It smells deep, fermented and animal, like musk, civet, castoreum, tobacco and agarwood at once, with a tarry, leathery, barnyard edge. It is used for the depth it gives, and it divides people.

Lanolin

The wax sheep secrete into their wool, washed out of it and used in creams and balms. It smells of raw wool: soft, waxy and dense, warm and faintly animal.

Leather

There is no leather oil to take: a leather note is always built, from materials that smell of tanned hide. Birch tar gives it smoke and tar, castoreum an animal warmth, isobutyl quinoline a bitter, inky, green-leather bite, and labdanum and saffron-like molecules a softer, warmer skin. The result can be anything from a new car seat or a riding boot, dark and smoky like the old Russian leather, to a worn, supple glove. It sits in the base and lasts.

Leather Accord

No change: leather, with the word accord saying it is built, which every leather note is.

Musk

Once the dried gland of the male musk deer, the most precious raw material perfumery had, and banned since the deer was protected in 1979; now almost always made in the laboratory. Musk smells soft, warm and close: clean skin, a little powdery, sweet, sometimes animal. The synthetic musks come in three families, nitro, polycyclic and macrocyclic, the last the nearest to the real thing. Musk is how most perfumes end, holding the rest to the skin long after the top has gone.

White Musk

Not the deer's musk but the clean, laundry-soft musk of the laboratory: synthetic, lighter, sweeter and more like fresh cotton and skin than anything animal. It is one of the commonest notes in perfume today.

Deer Musk

Musk named for where it once came from, the gland of the musk deer: warm, animal, dark and a little dirty, far rounder than white musk. The real thing has been banned for decades, so in a modern perfume it is rebuilt to smell like it.

Tonkin Musk

Tonkin, or Tonquin, was the most prized grade of deer musk, from Tibet and China, ahead of Assam and Nepal musk. Pineward names it for that old, deep, animal musk, which today can only be reconstructed.

Sheep Wool

A sheep's fleece, before it is washed: its smell is mostly lanolin, the wax sheep secrete into their wool. Warm, soft and waxy, faintly animal, the smell of a wool jumper just come in from the rain.

Skin

The smell of clean, warm skin, built rather than taken from anywhere: soft musks above all, sometimes with ambergris, a trace of powder, and a little sweetness like a lotion. Fragrantica calls it a comfortable, warm, powdery-musky scent. A perfume with it wears close, as though it were your own skin smelling a little better.

Suede

Leather made soft: an accord built by perfumers to smell of the brushed, velvety underside of hide rather than a polished or smoky one. Where leather is tarry, suede is powdery, musky and gentle, a little sweet, sometimes like a new pair of gloves. It sits in the base and warms whatever is with it.

Cedarmoss

Lichen gathered from cedar trees, mostly tree moss with some beard lichen, and sold as an absolute from Morocco. It is oakmoss's wilder cousin: earthy and damp, with a seaweed-like, vegetable wetness, and underneath it charred wood, ash, leather, hay and tobacco, like a park on a cold October afternoon. It anchors a perfume and makes it last.

Cedar Moss Absolute (Morocco)

The same lichen taken as an absolute, with solvents, which gives the fullest and most concentrated form of it; Morocco is where cedarmoss absolute comes from. Les Abstraits names both to say which material it used.

Concrete

The smell of the city's ground: grey, cool and chalky, and at its best like pavement just after the rain has hit it, moist, a little oily and oddly sweet. Nothing is taken from real concrete; it is built from mineral notes, and cashmeran at the right dose can smell of wet concrete on its own.

Damp Vegetation

Pineward's picture of leaves, stems and moss lying wet on a forest or bog floor, going soft: green, earthy, heavy with water and just starting to rot. Perfumers build it from soil notes, dark vetiver, oakmoss and galbanum, the materials that make a perfume smell of wetland.

Dust

The dry smell of dust in a closed room or an old house, built rather than taken: mostly powdery materials, iris, musk and benzoin, kept dry so that they read as dust and paper rather than face powder. It is soft, a little stale and quietly nostalgic.

Lichen

The crusty, leafy growths on bark and stone, half fungus and half alga. In perfume lichen smells the same as oakmoss, which is itself a lichen: earthy, woody, sharp and a little sweet, like damp bark in shade. Like oakmoss it is heavily restricted, so many perfumes use substitutes.

Mineral Accord

The smell of stone, an impression built from several materials rather than from rock: flint struck against steel, wet slate, sea salt, hot rocks, chalk. It feels cool, clean and a little metallic, and makes a perfume seem clear. Mineral notes only became a tool of their own recently; Terre d'Hermès' flint made them famous.

Mineral Accords

No change: mineral accord in the plural.

Moss

Moss as the forest floor smells of it: damp, green, earthy and inky-bitter, cool under old trees after rain. In perfume the moss is almost always a lichen, oakmoss or tree moss, or a synthetic mossy note, which also gives a perfume its depth and holds it on the skin.

Dry Moss

Moss without the wet: the dusty, phenolic dryness of oakmoss rather than its green dampness, the way the synthetic oakmosses smell. ADAR names it to keep its moss dry.

Mushroom

The smell of mushrooms: earthy and musty, fresh and a little sharp, sometimes like mushrooms with the dirt still on them. There is no mushroom oil to use, so perfumers build it, with earthy, damp and green materials and molecules like the one that gives mushrooms their smell. It brings the forest floor into a perfume.

Morel Mushroom

The honeycombed, veined morel, the prize of the spring mushroom hunt: moist, earthen and a little nutty rather than the button mushroom's plain mustiness.

Oyster Mushroom

The pale, fan-shaped oyster mushroom that grows on dead wood: softer and sweeter than a common mushroom, with a faint musky freshness.

Oakmoss

Not a moss but a lichen, Evernia prunastri, that grows on oaks in the mountain forests of Europe and North Africa. It smells earthy, woody and sharp, damp and inky, like a walk through a forest after rain, with a leathery, sweet depth underneath. It is the foundation of chypre and fougère perfumes and holds everything to the skin. Because it can irritate skin, IFRA now limits it to a trace, and most perfumes use a version with the irritants taken out, or a synthetic.

Oakmoss Absolute

Oakmoss taken as an absolute, with solvents: the most concentrated form, green, earthy and sweet, now usually treated to take out the irritant atranol so that it can be used at all.

Peat

The dark, half-rotted plant matter of bogs, cut and burned for fuel, most famously to dry the barley of Islay whiskies. As a note it is dry, bitter and malty with a hint of smoke, and it brings with it the iodine, seaweed and salt of those whiskies and the moors they come from.

Petrichor

The smell of rain on dry ground, named in 1964 from the Greek for stone and the blood of the gods. Much of it is geosmin, made by soil microbes, which the nose can find at under a part per billion; raindrops throw it into the air. Perfumers build it from vetiver, patchouli, mosses, mineral accords and damp woods, and the result is earthy, cool and oddly comforting.

Petrichor Accord

No change: petrichor, with the word accord saying it is built.

Sand

The smell of warm, dry sand, built as an impression: a soft mineral note, often with a woody, sandalwood-like warmth and a little salt. It feels granular, dry and sunny, the beach or the desert rather than the sea.

Soil

Earth as it smells when turned over or rained on: damp, dark, a little like beetroot. That smell is mostly geosmin, one of the most powerful smells in nature, and perfumers use it, and earth tinctures, in tiny amounts. It grounds a perfume and makes it smell of outdoors.

Wet Soil

Soil with the rain on it: the geosmin, the petrichor side of earth, cooler and fresher than dry dirt.

Earthy Notes

No change: earth, named as a kind of note.

Soil Tincture

Earth made into a tincture, steeped in alcohol for perfume, rather than an accord built from molecules; Fragrantica files a synthetic earth tincture beside it, inspired by the smell of earth. It is soil at its most literal.

Spikenard

The root of Nardostachys jatamansi, a small plant of the high Himalayas, and the nard of the ancient world. Its oil smells of deep, sweet earth: damp forest floor, rooty and warm, woody and herbal, with a musky, almost animal depth. It fixes a perfume and suits chypres and ambers. It is endangered from overharvesting.

Himalayan Nard (Jatamansi)

No change: jatamansi is spikenard's Indian name, and it grows in the Himalayas.

Swamp Water

Pineward's picture of still, dark water in a bog: green and dusty, fruity and stuffy all at once, with sedge and pond-lilies, decaying wood and wet moss. Perfumers build it from soil notes, dark vetiver, oakmoss and galbanum.

Treemoss

Pseudevernia furfuracea, a lichen that grows on the bark of firs and pines and is gathered in quantity for French perfumery. It is darker, rougher and more powerful than oakmoss: woody, earthy and leathery, the forest floor with the pine bark still on it. It fixes a perfume, and like oakmoss it is now restricted.

Wet Stone

Stone after rain: cool, clean and mineral, a little metallic, watery and earthy at once. It is built from mineral notes, often with a touch of vetiver for a smoky, flinty edge.

Airy Note

Not a material but a quality: something in a perfume that makes it feel light, open and full of air, as if you could breathe it in deeply. It is usually built from transparent, fresh materials, ozonic and aldehydic ones, soft musks, a touch of mint or green, and it is felt more as space than as a smell of its own.

Aquatic Notes

The smell of water, built in the laboratory: fresh, cool, a little salty and green, like sea spray or wet air. It mostly goes back to one molecule, Calone, found by chance by Pfizer chemists in 1966, which smells of the seashore, oysters and watermelon rind; from the early 1990s it made a whole family of perfumes. Newer molecules make it softer and less metallic.

Clear Skies

An impression rather than a material: the open, bright, empty feeling of a cloudless blue sky. Ataraxia's list for Spinal Fluid calls it a blue sky accord; it is built, like other airy notes, from transparent, ozonic and clean musky materials, and it gives the perfume a cold, clean lightness above its darker notes.

Cold Night Air

ADAR's picture of stepping outside on a cold night: the air sharp, clean and almost without smell. There is no one material for it; cold is built from mentholated and aromatic notes, peppermint, eucalyptus, juniper, with ozonic and mineral touches that make a perfume smell like a deep breath of winter air.

Dead Water

Tombstone's name for still, stagnant water, the water of a grave or a mire that nothing moves through: murky, green, a little rotten and cold. Perfumers make it from soil and water notes, dark vetiver, moss and decaying greenery; it is the opposite of a fresh aquatic.

Marine Accord

The sea as a perfume: salt spray, wind, seaweed, wet rocks and driftwood, built from marine molecules like Calone with salt, mineral and algae notes. It can be bright and blue or salty and grey; either way it feels cool and wide open.

Sea Notes

No change: the sea, named as a kind of note.

Ozone

The smell of the air after a storm, or of washing dried in the wind: fresh, sharp, clean and a little metallic. Ozonic notes are built from synthetic molecules such as Calone, with its hint of oysters and watermelon, and Helional, watery and green like cut grass and melon. They make a perfume feel cold and airy.

Ozonic Notes

No change: ozone, named as a kind of note.

Rain Notes

The smell of rain, built rather than bottled: the fresh, watery lift of ozonic and aquatic molecules like Calone and Helional, and the earthy side of petrichor, vetiver, mosses, mineral notes and damp wood. Depending on which side leads, it smells like rain on hot concrete, or like a wet forest.

Sea Salt

Salt itself has no smell; in perfume it is an effect, built to give the feel of salt on warm skin or in the sea air. It makes the notes near it brighter, as salt does sweetness, and often sits with ambrette and seaweed. It first appeared in a perfume in 1989 and is a whole trend now.

Sea Water

Pineward's picture of the water itself, at the shore: salty, cool and a little green with algae, rather than the bright blue of a sport perfume. It is built from marine molecules with salt and seaweed notes.

Seaweed

The weeds of the shore and the sea, taken as absolutes from brown algae like kelp and wrack. They smell raw and salty, of iodine, dark and phenolic, like seaweed drying on rocks after a storm, with a smoky, leathery depth; some are greener and softer. They give a marine perfume a real bite, and suit dark chypres and leathers.

Bladderwrack

One seaweed in particular, Fucus vesiculosus, the brown wrack with air bladders along it, the first source of iodine. As an absolute it is the roughest and most animal of the seaweeds: salty, phenolic, like leather on a harbour wall.

Irish Sea Moss

Not a moss but a red seaweed, Chondrus crispus, from the rocky Atlantic coasts, better known for thickening food. Soaked, it has a plain sea-like smell, softer than the brown wracks.

Solar Notes

The feeling of sunshine on skin: warm, radiant, a little creamy, like sun cream on a beach. Much of it comes from salicylates, molecules used first in sunscreens and found naturally in tiare, frangipani and ylang-ylang, with coconut, vanilla, white flowers and citrus around them.

Steam

The smell of hot water turning to vapour, as in a bathhouse or over a hot spring: humid, clean, faintly mineral, and warm against the cold. It is built from mineral, watery and airy notes; one wearer of Ataraxia's Spinal Fluid pictured it as steam pushed from vents into a dark alley.

Ash

What is left when the fire is out: the dry, grey, mineral smell of wood ash, or at its darker end a cold ashtray. It is built from smoky and powdery materials rather than real ash, and it can be clean and earthy, or dusty and sad; perfumers often use it for loss and renewal.

Birch Tar

A thick, black tar made by heating birch bark without air, used for thousands of years as a glue and to cure leather. It smells intensely smoky, tarry and leathery, like a campfire and a tannery at once, and it is the heart of the old Russian leather perfumes, usually with castoreum and isobutyl quinoline. In perfume it is purified first, to take out what is harmful.

Natural Birch Tar

Ataraxia stresses that its tar is the real one, from birch bark, rather than a smoky leather built from molecules; purified, it keeps the full, raw smoke and bitterness of the material.

Fire

The smell of something burning right now, rather than the smoke or the ash after it: hot, dry, crackling wood and char, sometimes a flash of fuel. It is built from smoky phenols, birch tar, cade and guaiac wood, sometimes with something sweet, like chestnuts by a fireplace, to make it warm rather than harsh.

Gasoline

The sharp, volatile, oily smell of fuel, built by perfumers and much argued over: some wearers love it, as some people love a petrol station. It turns up with rubber and metallic notes, and dries down into leather or smoke. In Spinal Fluid it is the loud, heating-oil opening.

Palo Santo

The wood of Bursera graveolens, a tree of South America's dry coasts, whose name means holy wood, burned to clear a room. It smells woody and aromatic, with a fresh, citrusy, almost minty lift, something oily like olive oil, and a smoke that seems built into the wood itself. In perfume it gives a soft, sweet woody trail.

Smoked Palo Santo

Palo santo as it smells when it is lit, as it is in a ritual: its smoky side put first, over its fresh and minty one.

Pine Tar

Tar made from pine wood, dark and sticky, once painted on boats and ropes to keep the water out. It smells resinous, smoky and balsamic, like hot pine resin and burnt wood, sweeter and more piney than birch tar's leather.

Smoke

Smoke is not one thing: wood smoke, incense, tobacco and tar all smell different, and perfumers build each from smoky materials, birch and cade tars made by heating wood, guaiacol, syringol and other phenols, vetiver and guaiac wood. They smell charred, dry and sometimes medicinal, and make a perfume dark, warm and deep.

Smouldering Logs

Pineward's picture of logs burned down and still glowing, after the flames: warm, charred and smoky, softer than a blaze, with a little ash. It is built from smoky wood materials, tars and phenols.

Aged Parchment

The smell of old writing skin and old paper, as in an archive: dry, dusty and faintly sweet, with a leathery edge. As paper ages the lignin in it breaks down into something very like vanillin, which is why old pages smell a little of vanilla; perfumers build the rest from dry, dusty and leathery notes, and find it hard, because printed paper smells dry and fatty.

Aged Parchment Accord

No change: aged parchment, with the word accord saying it is built rather than taken from real parchment.

Parchment

No change: parchment, without the word aged; the same dry, old-paper smell.

Blush

No house page says what goes into it; it is one of the cosmetic notes Fragrantica lists for Ataraxia's My Doll's Makeup, named for the pressed powder brushed on the cheeks. Cosmetic smells in perfume are powdery above all: iris, violet and their ionones, rose, musks and a soft sweetness, the smell of an old makeup compact.

Candle Wax

The smell of a candle, lit or just blown out: warm, soft and waxy, a little sweet, with a thread of smoke. Beeswax brings honey, hay and a golden amber warmth; paraffin, a plainer, dustier melted wax. With incense it is the smell of a church.

CO2 Extracts

Not a smell but a way of taking one: carbon dioxide, pressed until it behaves like a liquid, washes the smell out of a plant at low temperature and then simply evaporates, leaving no solvent behind. Nothing is cooked, so a CO2 extract smells very close to the raw material: a vanilla pod, a ginger root, roasted coffee as they really are. Named as a note, it says the perfume uses them.

African CO2

A CO2 extract of something grown in Africa. The list for Grande's White Label names only the place, not the plant, so what it smells of cannot be said; it tells you the material was taken the same clean way, close to the raw plant.

Decayed Rose

Pineward's rose at the end of its life, the petals gone brown and soft: still rosy, but jammy, musty and a little sour, sweetness turning to rot. It belongs with dried-rose notes and the wilted, funerary flowers of dark perfumes.

Dried Blood

Blood smells of metal, from the iron in it, and the molecules behind a metallic smell are earthy, mushroom-like and a little fishy. Perfumers build a blood accord from salty and metallic notes; dried, it is duller and darker, rust more than red. In Spinal Fluid it sits at the heart, beside meat.

Dusty Antiques

Ataraxia's picture of a room full of old things, in Vestibule, a vampire's lair: old wood and polish, faded fabric and paper, and dust over all of it. It is built from dusty, powdery and woody notes, and it smells close, dry and nostalgic.

Antique Shop

No change: the same picture, named by the place.

Dusty Sofa

Ataraxia's picture, in Amaretto Jazz in the Melting Room, of an old upholstered sofa: worn fabric, dust, and the warmth of the room around it. It is an impression, built from dusty and powdery notes, soft, stale and comfortable.

Eye Pencil

No house page says what goes into it; it is one of the cosmetic notes Fragrantica lists for Ataraxia's My Doll's Makeup, named for the kohl or eyeliner pencil: the dry, woody smell of a cedar pencil being sharpened, with the waxy, powdery softness of the makeup inside it.

Gold

Gold has no smell; it is an idea perfumers chase. They give the feeling of it with yellow flowers, benzoin, white or pink pepper, rose and bergamot, and with metallic materials that seem smooth, shiny and cool. Ataraxia names it in Deity.

Instant Film

The smell of a Polaroid as it comes out of the camera and the picture appears: a fantasy note, chemical and a little metallic from the developing paste, with a plastic note from the frame and a faint, almost vanilla sweetness. It is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, only very specific, and it brings back the memory of shaking a photograph.

Instant Film Accord

No change: instant film, with the word accord saying it is built.

Lip Gloss

The smell of lip gloss: sweet and sugary, candyfloss, cherry, peach or vanilla, over something waxy and slick. It is a fantasy note, sweeter and more childish than lipstick, and one of the cosmetic notes of Ataraxia's My Doll's Makeup.

Lipstick

The smell of old-fashioned lipstick, which was scented with rose, violet and iris: in perfume an undefined, powdery, red-purple floral in which you cannot quite pick out the rose or the violet, with something waxy and creamy under it. It is the most recognisable of the cosmetic notes.

Makeup Palette

No house page says what goes into it; it is one of the cosmetic notes Fragrantica lists for Ataraxia's My Doll's Makeup, named for an open palette of powders and colours. Makeup smells mostly of powder: iris and violet, their ionones, rose, musk and a soft sweetness, dry rather than creamy.

Mousse de Saxe

Saxon moss: one of the famous old perfume bases made by the de Laire company, which from the late 1800s mixed the new synthetic molecules with natural oils into ready accords. It combines geranium, anise, isobutyl quinoline for a leathery bite, heliotropin, vetiver and vanillin, and it is mossy, leathery, herbal and sweet at once, almost a perfume on its own. Ernest Daltroff made it a signature of Caron.

Vintage Mousse de Saxe

Pineward names the vintage kind, pointing to the base as it was used in the old perfumes, Caron's among them, rather than to a modern reconstruction of it.

Old Books

The smell of a second-hand bookshop: sweet, dusty and a little musty. As old paper breaks down, its lignin turns into something very like vanillin, so old books smell faintly of vanilla; perfumers add dust, must, leather and wood for a library.

Old Book

No change: old books in the singular.

Oriental Notes

Not one material but an old name for a whole family: the warm, rich, sweet perfumes of amber, vanilla, resins, spices, sandalwood and coumarin. The name is now widely seen as outdated and offensive, and much of the industry calls the family ambrée, or amber, instead.

Paper

The smell of paper: clean and dry with a faint woody sweetness from the lignin in it, which is close to vanillin. New paper smells dry and fatty, old paper sweeter and dustier; perfumers find it hard to build, because those are not notes they often use.

Porcelain

The smell of cold white china, which in perfume is a mineral, clay-like note: cool, clean and faintly like damp plaster, sometimes powdery.

Rotten Flesh

The smell of meat gone off, as Ataraxia's Spinal Fluid puts it, next to raw meat and blood. It is built with indole, which in a trace makes white flowers bloom and in quantity smells of decay, or, as Luca Turin put it, of rotten teeth. It is there to disturb.

Salty Tears

Tears smell of almost nothing but salt and skin; a tear accord gives that faint salinity, watery and close, a little like skin after crying. Salt has no smell of its own, so it is an effect, built to make a perfume feel wet and human.

Spinal Fluid

A note that is the name of the perfume itself: Ataraxia's Spinal Fluid, which Fragrantica lists among its own notes. No one wears the real thing; the house builds the idea from fire, fuel, steam and a tear accord, blood and meat, ash, a blue sky accord and bluebell, and the whole smells clinical, bodily and synthetic, gasoline over indole.

Velvet

A texture rather than a smell: the soft, heavy, plush feel of velvet, given by soft musks, powdery flowers and warm woods, like cashmeran, a molecule said to smell of cashmere wool.

Westfarthing Leaf

Pineward's tobacco, named for the Westfarthing, the part of Tolkien's Shire where Bag End stands; the Shire's hobbits smoked pipe-weed, their tobacco. Tobacco leaf in perfume smells sweet, dry and herbal, of hay, honey, tea and dried fruit, a little woody and mossy.

Westfarthing Leaf (Tobacco)

No change: the same leaf, with what it is written beside it.