Mariposa Lily

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Mariposa lily is a fantasy floral. It reads as a clean, waxy white flower with a soapy freshness and a green stem, softening to a powdery muguet.

Scent Profile

White_floral leads on 'Delicate, waxy floral with a clean, almost soapy freshness', but it is held well below the 0.85 of lily-of-the-valley because the same source says the note is 'less intense than lily of the valley, less indolic than true lily'. Floral is the general petal body under it. Clean_musk is the soapiness, named twice: 'a soapy freshness' and 'slight soapiness'. Green is the 'faint green stem note', and the word faint is the reason it is not higher. Powdery is the development the source describes as 'Soft powdery muguet, transparent sweetness'. Below, aldehydic is the other half of soapy-clean, sweet_vanillic is the 'gently sweet' and 'transparent sweetness', lactonic is the waxiness, mineral is the 'spare, cool' high-altitude framing, and aquatic_ozonic is at trace. Every one of these rests on a single glossary entry, which is why the spreads on the leads are 0.22 to 0.26.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Floral

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

Origin

Mariposa lily names the Calochortus genus of the western United States. It is not a Lilium and it is not commercially extracted, so no oil, absolute or headspace product exists. The note is a reconstructed accord. Only one source describing its smell was found, and it is a perfumer's glossary rather than a supplier.

Usage in Perfumery

A heart floral used where a white flower must stay transparent. Its one source positions it entirely by what it is not: 'Lighter than gardenia, more transparent than magnolia', and 'less intense than lily of the valley, less indolic than true lily'. It suits airy, soapy-clean florals rather than heady ones.