White Champaca

Note Profile

Botanical 1 perfume

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About

The lighter, tea-like champaca from Michelia alba

Scent Profile

White champaca smells like a lighter, more transparent white flower, closer to magnolia than to an indolic jasmine. A green, tea-like shadow runs through it. A creamy, almost buttery softness sits underneath the floral, and a faint fruity note of banana blossom shows through, softer than in golden champaca.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~7h lasting

Family Floral

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

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can make White Champaca from this natural extract.

Natural extract Michelia alba flower oil grassy · tea · hay

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use this material, or something else.

Origin

White champaca is the flower of Michelia alba, also written Magnolia x alba, a magnolia-family tree grown across South and Southeast Asia. It is a different tree from the golden or red champaca (Michelia champaca) that the published Champaca note covers. Solvent extraction of the fresh white blossoms gives a concrete and then an absolute. Premiere Peau records the absolute as pale yellow and lighter in scent than golden champaca absolute. One retailer sells a steam-distilled oil under the same name, so commercial preparations differ and their strength differs with them.

Usage in Perfumery

A heart note. Trade sources place it where golden champaca would be too heavy: tea-floral accords, clean white-floral work and Asian-inspired compositions. Rising Sun Botanicals says it is useful in jasmine accords and was traditionally co-distilled with sandalwood to make an attar. The absolute exists but is uncommon, so most modern use of the name is a reconstruction rather than the natural.