What it smells like
Orris butter, violet, the inside of a vintage compact. Powder is a texture rather than an ingredient. It is a dry, faintly cool, faintly sweet blur that softens edges. It reads as either old-fashioned or expensive, depending on how much of it is used.
Where it stops
Powdery and Clean Musk both soften a composition. Powder is dry and cosmetic. Musk is skin-warm and close.
Smells most like
iris - and in the same register, rice powder, flour.
Notes that load on it
Notes from our catalogue whose position on this facet is 0.40 or higher, strongest first. A note is not filed under one facet: it carries a value on all 34 at once, and these are the ones where this axis is doing real work.
-
Rice Powder
Heart · ~8h
Prepared
20
-
Violet
Floral
Heart · ~8h
Botanical
2,409
-
Powdery
Heart · ~8h
Abstract
325
-
Heliotrope
Vanilla
Nutty
Floral
Heart · ~3h
Botanical
1,160
-
Baby Powder
Vanilla
Musk
Heart · ~8h
Prepared
2
-
Pollen
Honey
Tobacco & Hay
Heart · ~7h
Botanical
-
Iris
Creamy Wood
Heart · ~8h
Botanical
2,621
-
Mimosa
Nutty
Floral
Heart · ~8h
Botanical
476
-
Iris Pallida Absolute
Dry Wood
Mineral
Base · ~36h
Botanical
11
-
Rice Flour
Base · ~14h
Botanical
-
Opium
Floral
Amber
Base · ~36h
Abstract
5
-
Flour
Base · ~18h
Prepared
-
Mirabilis
Floral
Vanilla
Base · ~12h
Botanical
-
Suede
Leather
Musk
Base · ~18h
Prepared
584
-
Loukhoum
Floral
Vanilla
Nutty
Base · ~20h
Prepared
12
-
Florentine Iris Absolute
Base · ~30h
Botanical
-
Peach Blossom
Nutty
Floral
Heart · ~4h
Botanical
121
-
Macaron
Nutty
Vanilla
Base · ~16h
Prepared
23
-
Orris Butter
Creamy Wood
Base · ~24h
Botanical
22
-
Feathers
Musk
Base · ~20h
Animal
Materials that carry it
Real substances, each keyed by its CAS registry number, that an external perfumery vocabulary publishes with a term meaning this facet outright. This is the layer that makes a facet checkable against something outside our own database.
| Material | CAS | Terms | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| alpha-irone | CAS 79-69-6 | orris, powdery | |
| dihydro-alpha-ionone | CAS 31499-72-6 | orris, powdery | |
| diethyldimethylcyclohex-2-en-1-one | CAS 68845-36-3 | orris, powdery | |
| 1-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohexen-1-yl)pent-1-en-3-one | CAS 127-43-5 | orris, powdery | IFRA |
| 1-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohex-2-en-1-yl)pent-1-en-3-one | CAS 7779-30-8 | orris, powdery | IFRA |
| (E)-1-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohex-2-en-1-yl)pent-1-en-3-one | CAS 127-42-4 | orris, powdery | IFRA |
| 1-penten-3-one, 2-methyl-1-(2,2,6-trimethylcyclohexenyl)- | CAS 68555-94-2 | orris, powdery | |
| (E)-4-[(5R)-5,6,6-trimethylcyclohexen-1-yl]but-3-en-2-one | CAS 79-77-6 | orris, powdery | |
| 3-buten-2-one, 4-(2,2,6-trimethyl-7-oxabicyclo[4.1.0]hept-1-yl)- | CAS 23267-57-4 | orris, powdery | |
| (z)-3-methyl-4-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohex-2-en-1-yl)but-3-en-2-one | CAS 127-51-5 | orris, powdery | Declarable IFRA |
| (E)-3-methyl-5-(2,2,3-trimethylcyclopent-3-en-1-yl)pent-3-en-2-one | CAS 65113-95-3 | orris, powdery | |
| [2-methyl-5-(2-methyl-3-methylidene-2-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptanyl)pent-2-enyl] acetate | CAS 1323-00-8 | orris, powdery | |
| phytol | CAS 150-86-7 | powdery | |
| cosmone | CAS 259854-70-1 | powdery | |
| guaiene | CAS 88-84-6 | powdery | |
| iritone | CAS 67801-38-1 | orris | |
| moskene | CAS 116-66-5 | powdery | IFRA |
| muscone | CAS 541-91-3 | powdery | |
| nonanal | CAS 124-19-6 | orris | |
| acorenol | CAS 28296-85-7 | powdery | |
| safranal | CAS 116-26-7 | powdery | IFRA |
| tonalide | CAS 21145-77-7 | powdery | |
| ostruthin | CAS 148-83-4 | orris | |
| phthalide | CAS 87-41-2 | powdery | |
| beta-irone | CAS 79-70-9 | powdery | |
| phantolide | CAS 15323-35-0 | powdery | IFRA |
| citronellol | CAS 141-25-3 | powdery | IFRA |
| cycloionone | CAS 5552-30-7 | orris | |
| musk ketone | CAS 81-14-1 | powdery | IFRA |
| alpha-ionone | CAS 127-41-3 | orris |
Showing 30 of 212. The full set ships with the published standard rather than being paginated here.
Reading the two flags
Declarable means the substance appears in Annex III of the EU Cosmetics Regulation, so it has to be named on the ingredient list once it passes a concentration threshold. IFRA means an IFRA Standard restricts or prohibits its use. Both are facts about the substance, not about any fragrance: a perfume can contain a declarable material below the threshold and never print it, and a restricted material used within its limit is used correctly.
The source also supplies no common name for a large share of materials, so those display as a bare registry number and are ranked last. They are kept because they are real evidence: dropping them would make the vocabulary look better described than it is.
Anchor terms
A facet on its own is just a word we chose. An anchor is what makes it checkable: a term in an external, independently maintained vocabulary of odour descriptions, built for perfumery materials rather than for us. The material list above is drawn from the direct terms only, because a partial term corroborates too weakly to stand as evidence on its own.
Direct
Terms that mean this facet outright
- dry, powdery
- iris
- orris
- powdery
Partial
Terms that lean this way but also load elsewhere
- violet leaf
The rest of Floral
The other facets in this family. A note can load on any of them at the same time as this one, so they are neighbours rather than alternatives.