The Scent Map

Notes

Every ingredient a perfumer reaches for, photographed and filed by what it actually is - a plant, a distillate, a single molecule, an animal material, a mineral, or an idea. Browse by eye; open any note for what it smells like and the perfumes that wear it.

1,765 notes 6 kinds of thing Character wheel & facets → Fly over every note →

Botanical

1,074 notes

Plants, and what is pressed, distilled or extracted straight from them - peel, petal, resin, root, wood, leaf.

All 1,074 botanical notes →

Prepared

364 notes

Materials that only exist because something was done to them: roasted, burnt, tanned, fermented, cured, cooked.

All 364 prepared notes →

Molecule

180 notes

Single aroma chemicals, named as themselves. Some occur in nature and some do not; all of them behave predictably.

All 180 molecule notes →

Abstract

90 notes

Notes that name a sensation rather than a substance. Nothing is distilled to make them - they are an effect the perfumer builds.

All 90 abstract notes →

Animal

31 notes

Materials of animal origin, and the modern reconstructions that stand in for them.

All 31 animal notes →

Mineral

26 notes

Stone, salt, metal and earth - the inorganic end of the vocabulary.

All 26 mineral notes →