Plasma
Note Profile
About
Plasma is the note for the smell of ionised gas: lightning, an electric arc, a plasma lamp, a plasma cutter. It is sharp, cold and metallic. The parts that make it up are ozone, nitrogen oxides, air that smells sterilised, and hot metal. It has no relation to blood plasma.
Scent Profile
Plasma smells sharp, cold and metallic, like ozone in the air after lightning. A pungent, dry mineral edge runs through it, the same smell hot metal gives off. Underneath sits a scrubbed, laundry-clean air, empty rather than warm. A smoky, soapy sharpness sits on top, as if something were being heated to incandescence.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Origin
Fantasy accord, built rather than extracted. There is no plasma material. The smell it names is real physics: an electrical discharge splits atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen and produces ozone and nitrogen oxides, and the electrode or workpiece heats. Ozone is the one component with a documented odour, given by Wikipedia as 'pungent, metallic, dry' and 'a very specific sharp odour somewhat resembling chlorine bleach', detectable at 0.1 ppm. In practice the accord is assembled from ozonic and metallic aroma chemicals.
Usage in Perfumery
Rare. One Fragrantica placement and none in the second vocabulary. Used in synthetic, futuristic and machine-themed compositions, at the top, where the brief calls for charged air rather than sea air.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Plasma
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Plasma appears prominently.
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