Want to be more fluent in fragrance? Lately, I’ve been pulled deep deep into the perfume youtube world and while watching a lot of reviews (my bank account is not happy) I realize there are so many common perfume terms I did not fully understand, so I went looking and below is what I found. In today’s blog, it will be a vocabulary lesson on the expansive world of perfume. Let’s take a deep dive into the beautiful world of fragrance.

Parts of a Fragrance/perfume

Note: In perfumery, notes are descriptors of the different scents you may smell.

Accord: Combinations of single notes (scent) that are used to produce other fragrant effects for a perfumer. An accord might be two ingredients; it could run into several hundred.  

Top Notes (scent): The very first notes you smell in a fragrance, which might last just a few minutes – often citrus notes like bergamot, neroli, mandarin, or lemon.

Middle Notes (scent): As top notes dissolve, the middle note of the fragrance shows up. Floral notes usually sit in the middle of a fragrance, as do fruity elements. They’ll last for a couple of hours on the skin, rarely longer.

Base Notes (scent): This is the deepest and most long-lasting of the notes in a fragrance, which tends to last longest on the skin – such as vanilla, amber, musk, patchouli, moss and woody scents.

Aromatic: This usually means smelling herbal or “green” (such as lavender, thyme, rosemary)

Compound: Another name for a fragrance, flavor, aroma, or chemical compound – basically, another word for a scented ingredient.

Blend: A blend is a mixture of scented ingredients.

Body: The heart or middle of a fragrance, which is the main part.

Types of Fragrance/perfume

Cologne: The lightest concentration of perfume, taking its name from Eau de Cologne. A Cologne has just 2-4% of perfume oils and may last on the skin for up to two hours.

Diffusion: How a perfume travels from the body into the air around the wearer – diffusion is why you can smell someone’s perfume when they walk by.

Distillation: Distillation is a form of extracting a scented ingredient from plant material, mostly through the use of steam; the fragrant plant oils travel to the surface and can be drawn off.

Eau de Toilette: This fragrance has between 10-15% aromatic ingredients in a base of water or alcohol. It will last up to three to four hours on the skin.

Eau de Parfum: A 15-20% concentration of aromatic ingredients in a fragrance, with a life on the skin of around four to five hours.

Undertones: These are subtle characteristics of the fragrance background which create pleasant nuances that are an important part of the fragrance character.

Perfume Common Notes and Smells

Balsams: These are resins that are rich in oil and tend to smell soft and sometimes faintly sweet. Examples are Peru balsam, benzoin and tolu balsam. They’re base notes, too.

Citrus:  Can refer to a scent that is predominantly citrusy or to individual ingredients from the citrus family, including grapefruit, lime, lemon, tangerine, orange and petitgrain.

Floral: Can refer to a fragrance that gives a particularly flowery impression or to a single floral ingredient like rose, jasmine, iris or ylang ylang. Rose and jasmine are present in mostly every fragrances. This is the biggest family of fragrances.

Musk: A modern synthetic musks can either smell clean or offer a downy sensuality to perfume.

Woody: A fragrance family that evokes the scent of fresh-cut or dry woods and may feature ingredients like vetiver, sandalwood, cedarwood or oudh.

Gourmand: A relatively new (25 years) family of fragrances that takes its inspiration from the food world and makes stars of ingredients like chocolate, praline, caramel and vanilla.

Chypre:  A classic fragrance family of great sophistication, which tends to include bergamot and oakmoss somewhere in the blend. There are men’s and women’s Chypre scents.

Fruity: Fruit notes tend mostly to be blended with florals rather than be the star of the show, but may include plum, blackberry, peach, apple, cherry or strawberry.

Leather: A family of fragrances that tends to have a smokiness that evokes traditional leather goods. (Mostly the leathery scent comes from ingredients like birch.)

The Difference Between Cologne and Perfume?

the difference between cologne and perfume is actually not based on gender. The difference however, lies in the concentration of essential oils in the fragrance's water and alcohol base. Perfumes contain a higher concentration of oils, typically somewhere around 20 to 30 percent, while the oil concentration in cologne falls around 2 to 4 percent.

What is a gourmand Fragrance?

A gourmand fragrance is a perfume consisting primarily of synthetic edible notes, such as honey, chocolate, vanilla or candy. These top and middle notes may be blended with non-edible base notes such as patchouli or musk. They have been described as olfactory desserts. They are also called "foodie" fragrances and can be both feminine and masculine.

What is a hair perfume?

Hair perfume, in the form of fragrant mists and oils, this is basically the hair-appropriate version of a brand’s most popular fragrance. The differences between your everyday perfumes and hair perfumes may vary, but for the most part, the scents that are made for your hair are typically a lot less costly than their counterparts, a mother noticeable big difference is they contain way less alcohol than a traditional everyday perfume.

The Difference between Niche and Designer Perfume?

The big difference between a niche perfume from a designer perfume is how many number of doors they are sold in, this is, the number of retail outlets stocking the specific scent or brand. So it’s safe to assume that the majority of scents we find in large retail franchises and department stores are “mainstream or designer” scents. This is in comparison to a nice perfume, when you want to buy a niche fragrance, where excatly do you go? Well, here’s another difference: niche brands have limited distribution. They are only available in luxury, high-end boutiques or on the perfumer’s website – these fragrances are not designed for the masses.

Comment below if you learned some new terms today to describe your favourite perfume. Don’t forget to share.

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