Kudzu

Note Profile

Botanical

About

The flower of the kudzu vine. It smells of grape soda: sweet, purple and artificial, over a green, faintly floral base.

Scent Profile

Fruity leads because all three sources say the same thing and two of them reach for the same comparison. Premiere Peau: "Sweet, grape-like... a purple, sweet, Concord-grape character from methyl anthranilate, the same molecule in grape soda." Biology Insights: "People frequently compare the scent to artificial grape flavorings, such as grape candy or grape soda." It sits just under the published grape note's 0.82 rather than above it, because this is a flower doing an impression of a fruit. Floral is scored well above the published grape note's 0.25 and is the main thing that separates the two. The referent is a bloom, one source calls the scent "faintly floral" and another "floral undertones", and Fragrantica files the term under Flowers. Sweet_vanillic is the candy half of the grape-soda reading, named as "sweet" in every source and as "rich, sweet" in one. Green carries "fresh foliage", "fresh greenery notes" and "slightly herbal", which two independent sources give. White_floral is the sweet-pea comparison and the indolic-adjacent side of methyl anthranilate, kept low because no source names an indolic or heady quality. Earthy is scored small on purpose. Premiere Peau calls the flower's scent "earthy", but Biology Insights assigns earthy to the root and not the flower, so the two sources disagree about which organ it belongs to and the number reflects that doubt. Aromatic_herbal and honeyed run below. Clean_musk is zero although the published grape note carries 0.35: the only musk claim in these sources is about the cut root, which is a different part of the plant.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Fruity, Floral, Sweet & Gourmand

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

Origin

Pueraria montana, a fast-growing legume vine naturalised across the American South. The note is the flower and only the flower. Sources give the other plant parts separate profiles: the root is "starchy, earthy, or slightly musky" and the leaves and vines have "a mild, grassy, or neutral odor". The grape character is attributed to methyl anthranilate, named as the most abundant volatile in the bloom and the same molecule that flavours grape soda. No commercial kudzu flower extract was found; what is sold under the name is a composed fragrance oil.

Usage in Perfumery

Three Fragrantica perfumes, filed under Flowers, and no Parfumo attestation. A heart note used for its one trick, which is a recognisable grape-candy smell arriving from a flower rather than from a fruit. It gives a floral accord a fruity, nostalgic sweetness that a grape note alone would not, because the green and floral layer comes with it.