Glossary

Words

These are the words people use when they talk about perfume. The first list is for someone who wears it. The second list is for someone who makes it. A single material, such as orris or sandalwood, lives in the atlas, not here.

Words a wearer uses

This is the language of shopping, wearing, and talking about a bottle.

Perfume: The scented thing you put on. People also use the word for the whole subject: the craft, the bottles, and the smell itself.
Parfum: A French word for perfume, and also a strength. A parfum, sometimes called an extrait, has the most concentrated perfume oil and the least alcohol. It is usually the strongest version of a scent.
Eau de parfum: The strength most new bottles are. There is less perfume oil than in a parfum, and more than in an eau de toilette. The letters EDP mean the same thing.
Eau de toilette: A lighter strength than eau de parfum. It often smells brighter and fades sooner. The letters EDT mean the same thing.
Eau de cologne: A light, fresh strength, traditionally citrus. Cologne is also the name of one famous recipe from the city of Cologne. In ordinary speech, especially in North America, cologne just means a scent marketed to men.
Notes: The individual smells you can pick out, or the list printed on the box. A note is not always one material. Bergamot can be a note. So can 'clean' or 'powder,' which are impressions rather than a single ingredient.
Top notes: What you smell in the first minutes. Citrus and light herbs are often here. They are usually gone first.
Heart notes: The middle of the wear, after the opening has faded. Florals often sit here. Also called middle notes.
Base notes: What is left after the perfume has been on skin for a while. Woods, resins, musks, and vanilla are common. Also called the dry-down when you mean the smell at that stage, not the list on the box.
Opening: The first smell, straight from the bottle or just after you spray. It is often sharper than the rest of the wear.
Dry-down: The smell that remains after the perfume has settled. Many people decide whether they like a perfume from the dry-down, not from the opening.
Accord: A smell made by putting several materials together so they read as one idea. 'Amber' in a modern perfume is usually an accord, not a single ingredient. A leather accord is the same kind of thing.
Sillage: The trail a perfume leaves in the air as you move. A big sillage means people notice you walking by. A small one means they notice when they are close. The word is French, and it rhymes with 'message' only by accident. Say see-YAHZH.
Projection: How far the smell stands off the skin while you are sitting still. It is related to sillage, but sillage is the trail you leave when you move.
Longevity: How long you can still smell it on yourself. Skin, weather, and how much you sprayed all change the number. A perfume that lasts a long time is not automatically a better perfume.
Skin scent: A perfume that sits close to the body. Someone else smells it when they lean in, not from across the room.
Powdery: A soft, cosmetic, slightly dry sweetness, like face powder or old lipstick. Iris, violet, and some musks are why a perfume smells this way. The iris material is usually orris, the root, which has its own page in the atlas.
Clean: A fresh, washed impression: soap, linen, or air after rain. It is an effect, not one material. Different clean perfumes are built from very different things.
Fresh: Bright and lively. Citrus, green leaves, and light herbs are the usual reason. Fresh does not mean the perfume is natural.
Warm: Sweet, spicy, resinous, or ambery, as opposed to sharp and cool. Vanilla, benzoin, cinnamon, and labdanum often make a perfume feel warm.
Gourmand: A perfume that smells edible: vanilla, chocolate, coffee, caramel, almond. The word is French for a person who loves food.
Animalic: A smell with a bodily, leather, or stable quality. Civet, castoreum, and some musks are the classic examples. In small amounts it makes a floral feel alive. In large amounts it is the whole story.
Niche: A perfume house whose main business is perfume, not fashion or soap. The word is used loosely. Some niche bottles are made in huge numbers.
Designer: A perfume sold under a fashion house name. Chanel and Dior are the examples people mean.
Indie: A small independent maker. The batch is often short, and the person who blended it may be the person who answers the email.
Flanker: A new version of a perfume that already exists. The name is usually the original plus a word: intense, elixir, summer. It is related, not the same bottle.
Sample: A small amount sold so you can wear the perfume before you buy a bottle. On this site, the Ophelia sample is $15, and that $15 comes off a bottle bought within 60 days.
Decant: Perfume moved from an original bottle into a smaller bottle, usually so it can be tried or sold in a smaller size. A decant is not always an official sample from the maker.
Full bottle: The regular size, as opposed to a sample or a decant. Ophelia's full bottle is 30 ml.
Blind buy: Buying a full bottle without smelling it first. People do it. It is an easy way to own something you do not like.
Layering: Wearing two scented products together on purpose, so they mix. A perfume and an unscented lotion is not layering. Two perfumes at once is.
Signature scent: The perfume someone wears most of the time, so that other people associate it with them.
Batch: One mixing of a perfume. A later batch can smell a little different if a material changed. Ophelia's first batch is one hundred numbered bottles.
Reformulation: A change to the recipe of a perfume that already went on sale. Materials get restricted, or a crop fails, or the cost moves. The bottle name often stays the same.
Nose: In ordinary speech, the person who composed the perfume. Also just the sense you smell with. If a review says 'the nose,' it means the perfumer.

Words a maker uses

This is the language of the bench. The atlas uses these words on the material pages.

Formula: The recipe: each material and how much of it. Amounts are often written in parts per thousand, so the whole formula adds up to 1,000.
Concentrate: The perfume oil before it is diluted for the bottle. The parfum, eau de parfum, or eau de toilette is this oil plus alcohol, and sometimes a little water.
Dilution: How much of a material is used in a trial, or how strong the finished perfume is. A material that is painful neat can be beautiful at one part in a thousand.
Accord: On the bench, an accord is a small formula built to smell like one idea, which is then used as a piece of a larger perfume. A maker may keep an amber accord, a leather accord, or a rose accord and drop it into more than one formula.
Base: Two meanings. On a bottle, the base notes are what lasts. On the bench, a base is a ready-made building block sold by a materials house, already a blend. The atlas uses 'base' for the place in the wear.
Heart: In this house, an office, not a compliment. The heart carries the idea of the composition. A material can be a heart in one formula and something else in another.
Modifier: A material used in a small amount to turn the heart. Neroli can do this. So can a trace of a sharp aroma chemical. It is easy to use too much.
Blender: A quiet material that gives the others something to sit in. Sandalwood and benzoin often work this way. The smell should not shout its own name.
Fixative: A material that slows the evaporation of the rest, so the opening does not vanish and leave nothing. Resins, some woods, and some musks are used this way. It is a job, not a promise that the perfume will last twelve hours.
Absolute: A thick extract of a plant, usually made by washing a concrete with alcohol and then removing the alcohol. Jasmine absolute and rose absolute are the famous ones. An absolute is not the same as an essential oil.
Concrete: The waxy first extract of a flower, made with a solvent. A concrete is usually turned into an absolute before it goes into a perfume. It still contains plant wax.
Essential oil: A volatile oil pulled from a plant, usually by steam distillation or, for citrus peel, by pressing. Lavender, bergamot, and vetiver are essential oils. Not every natural material is an essential oil.
Attar: In the older sense, a distillate of flowers into sandalwood oil, made in India and nearby. The word is also used now for any thick oil-based perfume without alcohol. This house uses the older sense unless it says otherwise.
Otto: A distilled essential oil of a flower, especially rose. Rose otto is the distilled oil. Rose absolute is the extracted one. They do not smell the same.
Hydrosol: The scented water left from steam distillation. Rose water is a hydrosol. It is much weaker than the oil.
Resinoid: An extract of a resin, balsam, or other material that will not yield an essential oil by distillation. Benzoin and labdanum are often met as resinoids.
Tincture: A material soaked in alcohol until the alcohol smells of it. Ambergris and orris are sometimes used this way. A tincture is slow, and the strength depends on how long it sat.
CO2 extract: A plant extract made with carbon dioxide under pressure, instead of hexane or steam. It often smells closer to the plant than a steam-distilled oil does. It is still a processed material, not the plant itself.
Isolate: One molecule taken out of a natural oil, or made to match one. Eugenol from clove, or citral from lemongrass, are isolates when they are no longer the whole oil.
Aroma chemical: A single smelling molecule, made in a laboratory or isolated from a natural material. Hedione, vanillin, and iso e super are aroma chemicals. The atlas has a page for each one we use or study.
Natural: A material that comes from a plant, an animal, or a resin, even after extraction. 'Natural' does not mean mild, safe, or unrestricted. Some naturals are IFRA prohibitions.
Synthetic: A smelling material made by chemistry rather than taken from a plant. Most modern perfumes contain synthetics. A synthetic can be the same molecule as one found in a flower.
Captive: An aroma chemical that a materials company does not sell on the open market. They keep it for their own formulas, or for clients they choose. You cannot buy it by the gram from a catalog.
IFRA: The International Fragrance Association. It publishes standards that restrict or prohibit materials in products sold to the public. A material page in the atlas shows the standard when there is one, and links to the PDF. IFRA is not a law by itself, but most sellers follow it.
Allergen: A material that must be named on a product label in some countries once it passes a set amount. Linalool, limonene, and citral are common ones. Being an allergen at a high dose is not the same as being banned.
CAS number: A registry number for a chemical, from the Chemical Abstracts Service. It identifies the molecule, not the smell. Two grades of the same material share a CAS number and can still smell different. The atlas lists it when we have it.
Blotter: A strip of paper you dip and smell. Also called a smelling strip or a mouillette. A blotter shows the material with no skin under it. Skin will smell different.
Organ: The perfumer's set of materials, arranged so they can be reached and smelled. The name comes from the shape of the old shelves, which looked a little like a pipe organ.
Trial: One attempt at a formula, weighed out and smelled. Also called a mod, short for modification. A perfume is the trial you keep.
Brief: The description of what a perfume is supposed to be, written before the formula. A client brief says who it is for and what it must cost. A personal brief can be one sentence.
Overdose: Using much more of a material than is usual, so it shapes the whole perfume. It is a choice, not a mistake, when it is written down.
Trace: An amount so small it would not smell like itself if you smelled it alone, but it changes the materials around it.
Maturation: Letting a finished concentrate sit so the materials settle into one smell. Days to months, depending on the formula.
Maceration: In making, the resting of the perfume after the concentrate is diluted in alcohol, before it is chilled and filtered. Wearers sometimes use the same word for a bottle that has sat unopened. Those are not the same step.
Evaporation: The leaving of a material into the air. A light material evaporates quickly. A heavy one stays. The atlas calls the practical result the span: how long the material is still itself.
Tenacity: How long a material keeps smelling on a blotter. A tenacious material is still there tomorrow. Tenacity is not the same as how far it throws.
Diffusion: How readily a material fills the air around it. A material can diffuse a long way and still fade quickly, or sit quietly and last.
Substantivity: How well a material hangs on to skin, hair, or cloth. A substantive musk is still on a scarf the next day.
Headspace: The air around a living flower or a finished perfume, captured and analyzed. It is a way to study a smell that cannot be distilled. It is also just the air in the top of a bottle.
GC-MS: Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. A machine method for separating a mixture and naming many of the molecules in it. It does not tell you whether the result smells good. It is a common way people try to copy a perfume.
Pyramid: The triangle of top, heart, and base printed in advertising. It is a sketch of the order you meet the smells. It is a bad filing system for materials, which is why the atlas records place and span separately.
Stability: Whether a perfume still smells right, and still looks right, after heat, light, and time. A beautiful trial that turns brown or sour is not finished.
Ethanol: The alcohol in a perfume bottle. It carries the oil, then evaporates on skin. Perfumers' alcohol is ethanol made for this use, often with a small amount of something that makes it unfit to drink.
Diluent: A material that thins another one so it can be weighed and poured. Dipropylene glycol, isopropyl myristate, and triethyl citrate are common. A diluent is not there to be smelled.

A single material has its own page in the atlas. Orris, for example, is the root behind most of what people call iris.