Fly Over Every Perfume Note
Note Island lays every note we publish out on one landscape. Notes that smell alike grow close together, so you can see how the whole vocabulary of perfume fits together.
Open Note Island →What you are looking at
Every note in a perfume has a scent of its own, and we measure each one against the same 34 scent facets that sit behind the ScentWheel. Note Island turns those measurements into a place you can walk around in. Each note stands where its scent puts it.
Every note is drawn as the thing it is
A citrus note is a fruit, whole and cut. A flower note is a flower. Resins are lumps of resin, woods are chips and branches, and the lab notes that perfumers build from single molecules are drawn as the molecule. Seeing the real thing next to the name is often the quickest way to learn what a note is.
Notes that smell alike stand close together
Bergamot stands among yuzu, bitter orange and kumquat. Vanilla stands near brown sugar and sugar. The ground is coloured by the note that owns it, using the note's own colour, so a family of notes shows up as one region. Cross the island and you move through the scent families one after another.
Height tells you how long a note lasts
Top notes, which open a scent and fade within the hour, stand on the high ground. Heart notes sit on the slopes. Base notes, which linger for many hours, lie in the low ground. Look across the island at a low angle and you can see the shape of the fragrance pyramid in the land.
A map has two directions and scent has 34, so squashing one onto the other loses something. Roughly half of a note's closest neighbours end up standing right beside it, and the rest are somewhere nearby. Use the map to wander and to spot regions. When you open a note, the list called "Smells most like" is the exact answer, worked out from all 34 facets rather than from where the notes happen to stand.
Getting around
Note Island works with a mouse, a keyboard or a touch screen. Every gesture has a button as well, in the cluster at the bottom right of the screen: a compass, zoom in and out, a switch between a 3D view and a straight-down 2D view, and a home button that takes you back to the start.
- On a phone or tablet. Drag one finger to move across the ground. Pinch to zoom. Twist two fingers to turn, and slide them up or down together to tilt. Double tap to zoom in on a spot. Tap a note to open it.
- With a mouse. Drag to move. Right-drag, or hold Ctrl and drag, to turn and tilt. Scroll to zoom toward the pointer, and double-click to zoom in on a spot.
- With a keyboard. The arrow keys or W, A, S and D move you. Hold Shift with the arrows, or use Q and E, to turn and tilt. Plus and minus zoom.
- Walk on the ground. The walk button puts you on the island at ground level. On a phone, a thumb-stick moves you and a drag looks around. On a computer, the mouse looks and W, A, S and D walk.
The search box finds any note by name and flies you there. The options button lets you change the time of day, from dawn to dusk, and turn the coloured fields on or off. If you would rather read than fly, the full list of notes sits under the map as ordinary links.
Open a note
Tap or click any note and a panel opens with what we know about it. It names the note and its scent family, says how long it lasts and how many perfumes use it, and shows two short rows of other notes you can fly to in one tap.
- Smells most like lists the closest notes by scent, each with a percentage, and the island draws a line from your note to each of them.
- Around it on the map lists what stands beside the note on the ground.
- Sits inside, Holds and Overlaps with show how notes contain one another. A note that "holds" others smells of nothing those others do not, so its field is drawn around theirs.
The panel also has a button to the note's own page, with its full scent profile and the perfumes that use it, and a button that copies a link straight to that note.
Frequently asked questions
What is Note Island?
Note Island is an explorable 3D map of the perfume notes we publish. Each note stands where its scent puts it, so notes that smell alike are neighbours. It is a way to learn the vocabulary of perfume by looking at it, and to find notes you have not met yet that smell like ones you love.
Why is it a landscape?
Because notes come from plants, resins, woods and other real things, and because a landscape is easy to move around on a phone. The fields, the height and the habitat of each note all come from stored note data, so the picture carries information and is not only decoration.
Is the distance on the map exact?
No. Scent has far more dimensions than a map can show, so the map is for wandering. When you need the real answer for a note, use its "Smells most like" list, which is calculated from all 34 scent facets.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes, on any phone or tablet that can show 3D graphics in the browser. The controls are built for touch, with a button for every gesture. If your device cannot show 3D, Note Island opens the plain list of every note instead, so nothing is out of reach.
How is this different from the ScentWheel?
The ScentWheel shows the scent fingerprint of one perfume or one note. Note Island shows where every note stands in relation to every other. Use the wheel to read a single thing, and the island to see how they all fit together.