Copper
Note Profile
About
Copper is a metallic note built to smell like the metal rather than distilled from it. It reads warm and slightly bloody, the smell of a handful of old pennies or of tap water that has run through copper pipes on a hot day. A sharp metallic tang sits on top and a faint blood-like warmth sits under it. It is a mineral note doing metal, not stone.
Scent Profile
Copper smells of warm metal: a handful of old pennies, or tap water that has run through copper pipes on a hot day. A sharp, cold metallic tang sits on top. Underneath is a faint blood-like animal warmth and a damp, mushroom-like earthy edge. It reads as metal, not stone.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Materials That Can Make This Note
Perfumers can build Copper from materials such as:
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1-octen-3-one mushroom · metallic · cabbage
Smell words come from published sources.
A given perfume with this note may use this material, or something else.
Origin
Copper has no extract and no smell of its own, so the note is always a built accord. The smell it copies is real chemistry. When metal touches skin, skin lipid peroxides react with the metal ions and give 1-octen-3-one, a metallic, mushroom-like molecule. The 2006 study that named it worked with iron, and the same molecule explains the smell of coins on skin. Perfumers rebuild the impression from metallic-mineral materials such as Safraleine, metallic aldehydes and musks, and mineral-ozonic notes.
Usage in Perfumery
Copper is an accent, not a body. It puts a warm metallic edge on leather, on dark florals, and on wet-stone and aquatic-mineral themes. Small doses do the work, because the key molecule is very strong.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Copper
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Copper appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.