Delonix

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Delonix is a fantasy accord, not an extract. The flame tree Delonix regia puts on one of the loudest flower displays in the tropics and has almost no smell. What perfumery sells under the name is a composed impression of that display: a bright warm floral, green leaf under it, and a thin thread of honey. Read the vector as a genre of accord rather than as a measured material.

Scent Profile

Floral leads, and it is the rosy-fresh kind that geraniol and linalool make, described as warm and bright rather than heady. Green is the green-leaf half of Premiere Peau's 'floral-green', the foliage the flowers are always shown against. Honeyed is the honey edge both source pages mention, kept just above the naming line because both call it faint. White_floral records MetaScent's single word 'narcotic' and is deliberately held below the leads, because one brand's marketing copy is not enough to make this a heady white floral. Sweet_vanillic is the sweetness that comes with the honey. Tropical is low on purpose: the sources use 'tropical' about the landscape and the tree, not about the smell, so it is not treated as a fruit claim. Citrus is the 'bright' in the description and nothing firmer.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Floral, Green & Aromatic

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

Origin

Delonix regia, the royal poinciana or flame tree, native to Madagascar and planted across the tropics for its mass of scarlet flowers. Premiere Peau states plainly that no commercial essential oil or absolute exists for the flower and calls the tree a scentless spectacle. Perfumers build the note from rosy-fresh floral materials, geraniol and linalool being the ones named, plus green-leaf notes and a honey sweetener. MetaScent's fragrance of the same name places Delonix in the heart and describes it as narcotic.

Usage in Perfumery

Used to signal a place and a picture rather than a smell: tropical flowering landscapes, heat, red against green. It sits in the heart of a composition and needs surrounding work to read at all. MetaScent's own use puts it beside ylang ylang and hyacinth over tolu balsam, oakmoss and cedarwood. Because the accord is not standardised, two houses using the name may not be selling the same thing.