Nalca
Note Profile
About
Nalca is Gunnera tinctoria, the large-leaved Chilean plant with a sour-tasting stalk. The one perfumery description found runs green into earthy: fresh cut grass and rich vegetation at the opening, a tartness that earns the common name Chilean rhubarb, then a rounder and deeper drydown like soil after rain. It is not related to culinary rhubarb and does not smell like the published Rhubarb note.
Scent Profile
Nalca smells green first, like freshly cut grass and rich vegetation. It carries damp earth at the start and rich soil after rain in the drydown. A subtle tartness runs through it, the sourness that gives the plant its Chilean rhubarb name. A crisp, herbaceous edge sits alongside the green.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Origin
Gunnera tinctoria, a large perennial of southern Chile and Argentina, naturalised and invasive in Ireland, the Azores and New Zealand. It is called nalca or pangue in Chile and Chilean rhubarb in English. The resemblance to rhubarb is in the stalk and the taste, not in the botany. Gunnera and Rheum sit in different plant orders.
Usage in Perfumery
One perfume in the data names it and none in Parfumo. Premiere Peau places it as a heart note that opens fresh and grassy, grows rounder and earthier over hours, and dries down to damp soil. Whether that is a distilled natural or a built accord is not established by any source.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Nalca
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Nalca appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.