Fruity

Sour

Volatile acidity: vinegar, unripe fruit, the sharp edge above a ferment

sour 58 notes 72 materials 5 anchors

What it smells like

The smell that arrives with acidity, not the taste of it. Included on the human panel's evidence rather than against it: dravnieks applied `sour, vinegar` to 60 materials and `sour milk` to 8 with no access to taste.

Where it stops

Sour is the acid. Fruity is the sugar and juice. The two are often inversely related in the same fruit. Citrus is peel oil, not the non-volatile citric acid of the juice.

Smells most like

vinegar - and in the same register, sumac, balsamic vinegar.

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.

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.

Materials carrying this facet, with registry number, source terms and regulatory status
Material CAS Terms Status
acetic acid CAS 64-19-7 acidic, sour, vinegar
pyruvic acid CAS 127-17-3 acidic, sour
valeric acid CAS 109-52-4 acidic, sour
ethyl lactate CAS 97-64-3 acidic, tart
propionic acid CAS 79-09-4 acidic, vinegar
isobutyric acid CAS 79-31-2 acidic, sour
isovaleric acid CAS 503-74-2 acidic, sour
trans-2-octenoic acid CAS 1871-67-6 acidic, sour
trans-2-pentenoic acid CAS 13991-37-2 acidic, sour
2-methyl-2-pentenoic acid CAS 3142-72-1 acidic, sour
2,4-dimethyl-2-pentenoic acid CAS 66634-97-7 acidic, tart
glyoxal CAS 107-22-2 sour
pyridine CAS 110-86-1 sour
triacetin CAS 102-76-1 acidic
tributyrin CAS 60-01-5 acidic
formic acid CAS 64-18-6 vinegar
tiglic acid CAS 80-59-1 acidic
decanoic acid CAS 334-48-5 sour
dl-methionine CAS 59-51-8 acidic
hexanoic acid CAS 142-62-1 sour
methylglyoxal CAS 78-98-8 acidic
alpha-sinensal CAS 17909-77-2 sour
beta-bisabolol CAS 15352-77-9 tart
heptanoic acid CAS 111-14-8 sour
levulinic acid CAS 123-76-2 acidic
acetic anhydride CAS 108-24-7 vinegar
ethyl pentanoate CAS 539-82-2 acidic
hexyl isobutyrate CAS 2349-07-7 tart
neryl isovalerate CAS 3915-83-1 sour
phenylacetic acid CAS 103-82-2 sour

Showing 30 of 72. 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
  • acidic
  • sour
  • sour, vinegar
  • tart
  • vinegar
Partial Terms that lean this way but also load elsewhere
  • fermented
  • fermented, rotten fruit
  • sour milk

The rest of Fruity

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.

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