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, like me.  In the world of fragrance, artisan perfumery is a tiny part of production volume.  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

The base note is the longest-lasting component of a fragrance. It emerges after the top and middle notes evaporate.  It 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.  They are named from the French for Cyprus, – but these days are usually described as mossy scents. Many of the aromatic plants which feature in chypre scents flourish on that island – I would love to visit.

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 agent I use most is ethyl alcohol.

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 days, once they are depleted, they’re removed and replaced with a fresh harvest of petals. This process is repeated until the greasy mix is saturated with the aroma of the flower.  This is a very labour intensive, and expensive way to extract aroma – I’d like to have a go one day.

Essential Oil

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

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 mean that any mint is in the blend.

Olfactory Pyramid

The olfactory pyramid, or perfume pyramid is a visual representation of the structure of a perfume, divided into three layers: top, middle, and base notes. This helps 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 are what 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 just before the top notes fade away…for example 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 base notes include sandalwood, vanilla, patchouli and musk.

The perfume pyramid makes things sound rather neat, but it’s not.  Perfume materials interact and depending on composition, the middle note in one scent could be the top note in another.

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 in an excellent method for experimenting with small amounts of botanical material.

Volatile

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

 

If you have a favourite term or definition you’d like to see here, drop a note in the comments.