Concrete

Note Profile

Mineral 14 perfumes

Drag to turn On Note Island

About

Concrete here is the building material, not the waxy flower extract that shares the word. It is the alkaline, chalky, dusty smell of Portland cement hydrating: calcium silicates react with water to give calcium hydroxide at pH 12-13 plus heat, and the smell is sharpest while the pour is wet and fades as it hardens.

Scent Profile

Concrete smells alkaline and chalky, the dusty mineral smell of wet cement rather than metal. A powdery, dry construction-dust quality sits close behind it. Whether it also reads as earthy is unclear, so that note stays faint, somewhere between rain on dry soil and something colder and more inorganic. A wet-pavement dampness passes over it while the pour is still fresh.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Elemental, Floral

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

WorldSee it in Note Island

ScentArt

What is ScentArt?

Origin

No extraction and no natural source. Portland cement, aggregate and water. The odour chemistry is the hydration reaction - calcium hydroxide and calcium sulfate released as the cement cures - and the note is composed from alkaline-mineral synthetics, chalky-dusty materials and faint sulphurous modifiers.

Usage in Perfumery

A background atmospheric note for urban, architectural and brutalist compositions, pairing with asphalt, metal and rain. All three measured uses of the bare note put it in the opening of a city or building scent: two open 'Concrete, Air accord, Moss, Trees' over paper, rubber and pencil shavings, and the third opens it beside ginger, mushrooms and rice steam.