Leather

Saffron

Note Profile

Botanical 3,562 perfumes

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Also Known As

Crocus, Italian Saffron

About

Precious, metallic spice

Scent Profile

Saffron has a distinctive spicy aroma with metallic, leathery, and slightly honeyed nuances, and a medicinal-iodine edge that flashes over the dry leather at working strength. Its scent can be both warm and dry, evoking hay or tobacco as it evolves, and it straddles the border between spice and the animalic. The note is complex, with a subtle bitterness and a lingering, radiant quality. Underneath sits a dry, stony mineral edge.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~8h lasting

Family Elemental, Amber · Musk · Leather, Spicy, Woody & Earthy

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

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ScentArt

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can build Saffron around this material.

Safranal tobacco · rosemary · camphoreous

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use some of these, or something else.

Origin

Saffron is derived from the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus flower, primarily cultivated in Iran, India, and Spain. The stigmas are carefully hand-harvested and dried, making saffron one of the most labour-intensive and costly spice ingredients.

Usage in Perfumery

Perfumers use saffron mainly as a heart note, where it imparts warmth and depth to spicy, oriental, and leather compositions. It blends well with oud, rose, amber, and woody notes.