My Tasmanian perfume glossary

A personal glossary of perfumery

A small collection of my favourites. 

Perfumery has a rich and intricate vocabulary.  This list barely skims the surface and that’s OK - there are excellent reference books if you’d like to dive deeper!  

Absolute

An absolute is a highly concentrated fragrance material extracted from a plant source. It is often processed several times, using a solvent to absorb aroma. Compared with steam distilled essential oils, absolutes are thicker, often strongly coloured and highly priced – they should be used with a delicate touch.  Boronia megastigma absolute, produced from Tasmanian grown flowers is a particular favourite of mine.

Accord

An accord in perfumery refers to a combination of two or more fragrance notes that blend together to create a distinct, unified scent. It’s a harmony between different materials – referencing the idea that musical notes can produce a chord or dischord. A fragrance accord is a wonderful example of the idea “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Aromachemical

An aromachemical is a chemical compound with a smell. It’s generally used to describe a material which has been made in a lab, but strictly speaking, natural compounds are all chemicals too.  Aromachemicals can exist naturally, like vanillin in vanilla beans or cinnamaldehydes in cinnamon bark; or they could be something that has never been found in nature, like Iso E Super.

Artisan

Artisan perfumers are perfumers who make their own fragrances by hand, like me.  In the world of fragrance, artisan perfumery is tiny.  The largest five international fragrance companies (Firminich, Givaudan, Symrise, Tagasako and International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF) are estimated to make more than 90% of the world’s perfumes.

Base Note/s

Base notes are the longest-lasting component of a fragrance. They emerge after the top and middle notes evaporate and can linger on the skin for hours. Base notes provide depth and richness.  I particularly enjoy working with Australian sandalwood oil, Santalum album can provide warm, woody, creamy, smooth and earthy qualities.

Balsam

A water insoluble, resinous, exudate of trees and bushes.  For example, Peru balsam Myroxylon balsamum.

Chypre

Chypre (it’s pronounced  ‘sheep-ra’) refers to a fragrance family (or genre) characterized by a bergamot-labdanum-oakmoss accord.  These days chypres are often described as mossy scents (my perfume Thamnic fits this category).  The word "chypre" comes from the French name for Cyprus, many of the aromatic plants which feature in chypre scents flourish on that island.  I hope I get to visit someday...

Concrete

A solid or semi solid wax produced by solvent extraction of plant materials.  It’s often used in the production of absolutes and sometimes in solid perfumes.

Diluant

A substance used to dilute something.  The diluting agents I use the most are alcohol (in eau de parfum) and organic coconut oil in my Four Seasons range.

Distillation

A heat dependent process for separating a liquid mixture based on differences in vapour pressure of components. The more volatile components are vaporised first, and then the vapour is condensed back into a liquid.  This is how most essential oils are produced. 

Enfleurage

Enfleurage (another French term – literally: inflowering) is an extraction process using highly purified and odourless vegetable or animal fat. The petals of a flower are spread across the fat and pressed in. The petals remain in the greasy compound for a few hours or days.  Once the scent has transferred to the fat they’re replaced with a fresh harvest of flowers. This process is repeated over and over until the mix is saturated with aroma.  It's is a very labour intensive, and expensive way to extract aroma.  I have had a go with jasmine but only in experimental quantities.

Essential Oil

Essential oils are volatile materials derived by a physical process (distillation or expression) from a single species of plant.

Fougère

Fougère is another fragrance type, or genre.  It takes its name from the French for ‘fern’ – and you say it ‘foo-jair’ (with the ‘j’ a little soft).  They almost always feature lavender, geranium, vetiver, bergamot, oakmoss and coumarin in the blend. It’s a little odd, as ferns don’t have much of a scent – these days herbal would be a more common description.  The first perfume of this type was Fougère Royal, produced by Paul Parquet of the French perfume house Houbigant in the late 1800s.

House

A perfume company, from a time when perfume was often produced in an actual house.  Making in the basement, the shop on the ground floor and the family living upstairs.

Indole

Indole is a potent aromachemical partly responsible for the seductive and intoxicating quality of white florals like neroli, jasmine and tuberose.  However, too much indole can smell musty, wet, sweaty, pungent and faecal. A great example of the importance of dose & balance in perfume – the difference between a captivating “animalic” note…or something less desirable.

Macerate

Flowers are soaked in hot oil, which acts as a solvent to capture the aroma.  The oil is then cleaned of botanical material and decanted.

Miscible

Capable of being mixed.  Volatile essential oils and alcohol are miscible, oil and water are not.

Note

A fragrance ‘note’ is a way of describing what you smell in a perfume…it is not an ingredient list.   For example, you may be able to smell a minty fresh ‘note’ in your perfume, but this does not necesarily mean mint is one of the materials present.

Perfume Pyramid

The perfume pyramid is a visual representation of the structure of a perfume, divided into three layers: top, middle, and base notes. This can help to explain how a fragrance evolves over time as each "layer" unfolds.

The top notes of a fragrance are also also known as opening notes or head notes, they give the first impression.  Typical natural top notes include the most volatile oils (e.g. bergamot, lemon, orange, basil, sage, lavender).

Middle notes, or heart notes make an appearance before the top notes fade away…examples include boronia, rose, ylang ylang, and neroli.

Base notes will begin to appear once the top notes have evaporated. Base notes are associated with the dry-down of a fragrance and create the final, lasting impression. Common natural base notes include sandalwood, vanilla, patchouli, vetiver and resins.

The perfume pyramid makes things sound rather neat, it’s not!  Perfume materials interact and depending on composition, the middle note in one scent could be the top note in another.  Also some perfumes are very linear - and the pyramid concept isn't helpful.

Perfumer

A perfumer designs and creates fragrances. They combine raw materials to craft scents.

Soliflore

A soliflore is a type of fragrance that focuses on a single note. These perfumes are designed to highlight the beauty and complexity of a single type of flower.

Tincture

A tincture is an infusion of plant material in alcohol. It is a less concentrated way of capturing aroma, compared to essential oils.  It is an excellent method for experimenting with small amounts of botanical material.  I use a tincture of Correa alba in my perfume Alba

Volatile

A volatile material is something that evaporates easily.  All perfumes are volatile – otherwise we wouldn’t smell them.

Do you have a favourite term or definition you’d like added to the glossary? Let me know in the comments...