Chlorophyll

Note Profile

Botanical

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About

Chlorophyll in perfumery does not name the plant pigment, which has no smell. It names the burst of green leaf volatiles released when plant tissue is cut or crushed. It smells raw, juicy and sharply green, like snapped stems and torn leaves, with a faint metallic edge. It is greener and rawer than galbanum or violet leaf and it fades fast.

Scent Profile

Chlorophyll smells raw, juicy and sharply green, like snapped stems and torn leaves before any single plant comes through. A faint metallic, almost bloody mineral edge runs underneath, sharp and slightly aldehydic. It is greener and rawer than galbanum or violet leaf, and it fades fast, settling into a faint grassy sweetness.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeTop · ~1h lasting

Family Green & Aromatic, Elemental

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

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can build Chlorophyll from materials such as:

Cis-3-hexen-1-ol grassy · foliage · green

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use some of these, or something else.

Origin

The word is borrowed from the pigment, but the material behind the note is green leaf volatile chemistry: cis-3-hexenol, cis-3-hexenal and related C6 aldehydes and alcohols. These are produced when a plant's own enzymes act on damaged tissue, which is why the smell arrives with the cut and not before it. Perfumers build a chlorophyll accord from those synthetics rather than from any extract of a single plant, so the note has no botanical origin in the usual sense. The faint metallic edge is attributed by Premiere Peau to iron in chlorophyll's breakdown products.

Usage in Perfumery

Chlorophyll is a top-note green used to open a composition with raw plant matter before any single plant is named. It sharpens florals, gives fruit an unripe stem, and sets up green chypres and fresh fougeres. Its tenacity is minimal, so it is used for the first impression and supported underneath by longer green materials such as galbanum or violet leaf.