Aluminum

Note Profile

Mineral

About

A cold, light metallic note. It reads as clean sheet metal and chilled air, without the blood warmth that copper and iron carry.

Scent Profile

Mineral is nearly the whole note, because every source describes one thing and calls it metal: "mineral and slightly electric", "the cold, slightly electric quality of metals". It is set just below metal 0.85 and copper 0.88, not above, because those two notes have a named referent chemistry behind them and this one is thinner. Aquatic_ozonic is the largest single difference from the two published metal notes and it comes from the one aluminium-specific description found, Fragrantica's "artificial metallic fresh note". Fresh, in a note with no floral and no citrus, is airy and ozonic. Premiere Peau's placement of metallic notes in marine accords supports the same reading. Aldehydic is direct: Premiere Peau names "certain aldehydes" among the materials that build the impression, and Virginia Tech names "aldehydes and ketones" as the compounds actually smelled. Animalic is where the evidence runs out and it is kept non-zero on purpose. The blood and skin facet is documented for iron and copper, and copper carries it at 0.30. Aluminium passivates under an oxide layer and is far less catalytically active at skin pH, so that mechanism cannot simply be assumed here, but nobody has stated it is absent either. The spread on this facet, 0.26, is the widest in the file and says exactly that. Earthy is the mushroom side of 1-octen-3-one, at half the weight it gets in copper for the same reason.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Elemental

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

A fantasy accord. No metal has an odour of its own. Dietrich and Glindemann showed in 2006 that what people call a metallic smell after touching iron or copper is their own skin oil oxidised on contact, chiefly 1-octen-3-one, and Virginia Tech's report of the study is blunt: "when humans describe the 'metallic' odor of iron metal, there are no iron atoms in the odors". Premiere Peau describes the perfumery answer to that, a reconstruction built from aldehydes, 1-octen-3-one type ketones and iron-oxide-like materials that "the brain interprets as 'metal'". Fragrantica lists this note as "an artificial metallic fresh note".

Usage in Perfumery

Three Fragrantica listings, no Parfumo attestation. Premiere Peau places metallic notes "in marine accords, blood-themed compositions, and avant-garde fragrances seeking inorganic sensory experiences". Aluminium is the cool end of that, used for a clean, industrial, almost airless effect rather than a visceral one.