Umami
Note Profile
About
The savoury taste concept borrowed into perfumery. Not a material and not one food. It names a brothy, meaty, salty savouriness that the trade press applies to anything from sesame and rice to green tea and a salty skin scent.
Scent Profile
Umami smells brothy and meaty, with a faint sulphurous, eggy hum underneath the savouriness. A salty, mineral edge runs through it, like skin after a day at the beach. There is a nutty note from sesame and rice, an earthy, mushroom-like depth, and a green, tea-like freshness. A faint sour, fermented tang and a trace of cooked, animal warmth round it out.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Origin
Nothing is sold as an umami accord. The word comes from taste science, where it labels the glutamate response, and Wikipedia defines it as a 'pleasant savory taste' that is 'characteristic of broths and cooked meats'. Perfumery took the word rather than a material. Marie Claire UK's round-up of 'umami perfumes' names olive oil, tomato, sesame, nuts and rice as the ingredients that carry it, and then also files a ylang-musk-sandalwood skin scent under the same heading because the copy calls it salty. Attested once on Fragrantica and not at all on Parfumo.
Usage in Perfumery
Used as a brief rather than a note: a savoury, salted counterweight under a gourmand or a skin scent, so the sweetness reads as food and not as sugar. In practice it is built from things this data set already holds separately, such as soy sauce, mushroom, truffle, sesame and salt.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Umami
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Umami appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.