Vanilla Blossom
Note Profile
About
Vanilla Blossom is the living flower of the vanilla orchid. It is not the cured pod and it does not smell of vanilla. Vanillin is made during curing of the fruit, so the flower carries none of it, and the one published human-nose report of the flower calls it grassy, or sour and metallic.
Scent Profile
Vanilla Blossom smells green, of freshly cut grass, and that is the whole first impression. The same observers recorded a second reading of the same flower as sour and metallic, so a thin volatile acidity and a cold mineral edge sit under the green. Alpha-pinene at 62 per cent of the headspace gives a dry, terpenic, pine-resin backbone, and eucalyptol adds a cool, camphoraceous lift. There is no sweetness in it anywhere.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
The flower of Vanilla planifolia, a climbing orchid grown in Madagascar, Mexico, Indonesia and Tahiti. Each bloom is greenish-yellow, about 5 cm across, and lasts one day. There is no commercial extract. What is known of the odour comes from headspace GC-MS of unpollinated flowers, which found 25 compounds led by alpha-pinene at 62.3 per cent and eucalyptol at 6.3 per cent.
Usage in Perfumery
There is no material to buy, so any use is a reconstruction. The note is worth having because it says what the flower is not: a perfumer reaching for vanilla blossom is reaching for a green, terpenic, faintly sour top, not for a second helping of the base. It sits against the vanilla accord rather than inside it.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Vanilla Blossom
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Vanilla Blossom appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.