The Devil’s Dictionary of Perfumery

Accord

Used when creating something that does not exist as a single ingredient, such as an aquatic accord or a rice accord. In reality, most people who announce that “the so-and-so accord…” do not quite understand what it means. It is also often confused with a note, leaving their explanations striking a decidedly discordant chord.

#accord

Atomizer

A little bottle for carrying perfume. It is also a magical vial for those who cannot wear scent at work or school and want to dream on the journey home, those who say “I hate it when the scent fades” and prefer generous top-ups, and those who want their fragrance beside them like a lover while traveling. The important point is that perfume transferred to an atomizer oxidizes more quickly, so refill it frequently with only as much as you can use up. Its purpose differs from the decant bottles that have so many devotees.

#atomizer

Absolute

You can tell that it is concentrated, but the difference from an essence or a concrete is less clear: one of the terms that torments newcomers to perfume. Think of it as the final form of an extract, the destination that takes longest to reach—and is therefore very expensive. Look up rose absolute and you will see just how costly an ingredient it is.

#absolute

Amber

The devilish word that torments every perfume lover and salesperson: “Amber.” Finding someone who can explain amber is like finding a needle in a haystack. Nine out of ten people who casually say “amber” misunderstand it and imagine that an ingredient called amber exists. It is not a single ingredient, but an amber note—a scent composed from several ingredients. It is also worth understanding that “Ambergris” is something quite different.

#amber

Enfleurage (Cold and Hot Methods)

Tradition itself, the craft of an artisan. Humanity’s curiosity about scent must have been formidable even in antiquity. Scent molecules are absorbed into animal fat; the fat is then removed to recover the original scent. Now suppose someone’s body odor smells utterly captivating to you. How would you make that scent your own? Why, use enfleurage, of course… For the rest, read Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Essence (Essential Oil)

The phrase “essence of…” may suggest something simply extracted. In the perfume industry, however, essence or essential oil refers to material that is entirely natural fragrance extracted from natural sources. If synthetic ingredients are mixed in, or it is not 100% natural fragrance material, it is called an aroma oil.

The important point is that 100% natural fragrance material does not mean the same smell as the original natural material. Rose essential oil often smells quite different from a fresh rose, and different roses frequently smell completely different from one another. As the name suggests, an essential oil is the extracted “essence”—the core—of the material. A core alone cannot depict the whole, so perfumers use synthetic ingredients to supply details that are absent from it.

#essence #essential oil

Eau de Cologne

Because cologne was once fashionable, some people retain the outdated equation “perfume = cologne = a strong smell I dislike.” Yet the idea that cologne smells strongest is not entirely mistaken: its high alcohol content gives it strong diffusion. What needs revising is the understanding of its purpose. Eau de cologne is about the clean feeling after a shower; its brief life is not designed to seduce others. Fleeting freshness is how to enjoy cologne.

#eau de cologne

Eau de Toilette

There was a time when eau de toilette accounted for almost the whole market. More recently, longer-lasting fragrances have been preferred, leaving toilette with less room. Fashion-brand perfumes around ¥10,000 are still often eaux de toilette, but most brands described as niche fragrance houses release eaux de parfum. Has humanity, now living longer, forgotten the beauty of things precisely because they are fleeting?

#eau de toilette

Eau de Parfum

For casually wearing a lovely scent, choose eau de parfum. In Japan, many people love the synthetic scents of fabric softeners and bath products yet have come to dislike perfume because so many wear it badly: do not forget to apply it to bare skin. Since eau de parfum often lasts longer, do not trust your own nose. In other words, do not repeatedly apply large amounts merely because you can no longer smell it. Your nose will probably have stopped noticing it after ten minutes.

#eau de parfum

Fragrance Pyramid

A triangle divided into upper, middle and lower levels, listing the ingredients that make up the top, middle and base notes. Bear in mind that a perfume does not actually descend from the tip of the pyramid: the notes smell simultaneously, with their relative strengths changing over time. Only the main ingredients appear in a fragrance pyramid, so an ingredient you perceive is not necessarily absent just because it is not listed. If someone insists on pointing this out every time, you would be wise to keep your distance. That is a problem of company, not of scent.

#olfactory pyramid #perfume pyramid

Evaporation Rate

The first character in the Japanese word for volatility carries the sense of scattering, and evaporation is what happens to perfume. “Evaporation rate” is thus the speed at which perfume evaporates—or, more precisely, the speed at which its aroma compounds evaporate. Perfume develops through these differences in evaporation rates. Just as cherry blossoms are beautiful because they fall, perfume is beautiful because it evaporates. If the scent never disappeared, perhaps there would be no beauty in it.
We pour money into water bearing an intangible scent that disappears. Do we find it worth more than water because it contains the perfumer’s life, or because we are being led along by a story?

If there were no cherry blossoms anywhere in this world, how peaceful our hearts would be in spring.

Ariwara no Narihira

Precisely because perfume evaporates and disappears, no one can possess it, and desire remains desire. People’s memories and shared olfactory recollections are what can make perfume enchanting.

Jean-Claude Ellena

#evaporation rate #volatility

Gourmand

A French word meaning someone who loves to eat. Thierry Mugler, founder of a fashion brand that hardly brings gluttony to mind, commissioned a scent inspired by the sweets of his childhood. It became a spectacular success and a fragrance family of its own. Perfumes so close to confectionery that you want to drink or lick them are rumored to attract insects as well as people. Yet one of the key ingredients in gourmand perfumery is earthy patchouli. The “gourmand,” then, has become a connoisseur who eats the scent of soil rather than sweets.

#gourmand

Aroma Compounds

Most of the scents we encounter every day consist of many kinds—dozens or hundreds—of fragrant molecules. Saying “I hate the smell of X” therefore often misses the mark. More precisely, you dislike the smell of a particular compound within X. Disliking one rose perfume is consequently no reason to decide that you dislike every rose perfume. Different roses smell different, and a fresh flower does not smell the same as the essential oil extracted from it. A perfume is then made by combining that oil with others.

#aroma compounds

Synthetic Ingredients

Also called chemicals or artificial fragrances, these ingredients are often persecuted as “scent pollution.” Yet we live alongside synthetic fragrance materials almost everywhere. How ironic that the very people who say “I hate perfume because it smells artificial” often adore the largely synthetic scents of fabric softeners and bath products. The flavors used to make food delicious in Japan also owe much to synthetic materials: ice cream, shaved-ice syrups, drinks—the list is endless.

Some people even insist that “synthetic ingredients are dangerous and natural ingredients are safe,” a statement of such extraordinary ignorance that there is little one can do. Natural substances can cause severe allergic reactions or even death. The world does not divide neatly into two absolute categories. Synthetic fragrance materials are a good example.

#artificial ingredients #man-made ingredients #synthetic #chemical

Combining

An attempt, born of human curiosity and dissatisfaction with just one scent, to elevate fragrance by mixing two perfumes. One camp argues that a perfumer has designed a perfume’s development, so combining it with another undermines it; the other says that perfume is for personal pleasure, so layering should be a matter of freedom. Perfumers themselves disagree, but the prevailing view seems to be: “The buyer is the one who wears it, so they should do as they please. Though I would not particularly recommend it.”

Brands that expressly recommend layering prevent chaos by making their fragrances simple or using fewer ingredients. This is a sophisticated skill: creating perfumes intended for layering that also stand on their own and sell.

#combining #layering #mixology

Signature Scent

A scent that becomes your signature, usually something you begin thinking about after trying many perfumes. Often it only becomes your signature through regular wear, when perfume and skin become one. Yet those searching for a signature scent can make searching an end in itself, trying one fragrance after another and consequently never finding their own signature. First, it is important to live with a fragrance you love.

#signature scent #signature perfume #signature fragrance

Sillage

The trail of scent left where someone wearing perfume has passed. In Europe and North America, it is one of the criteria used to assess perfume. In Japan, a scent lingering in a place often makes a negative impression and has become a measure of strength. Still, surely the lingering scent of a perfume composed with its sillage in mind is preferable to the wake of fabric softener.

#sillage

Natural Ingredients

Not everything natural is good, but the complexity and depth of its scent hardly need comparing with synthetic materials. The problem is that an essential oil extracted from a plant does not smell the same as the plant itself. To create a rose scent, combining natural rose material with several synthetic ingredients can produce a more realistic rose. Natural and synthetic fragrance ingredients are inseparably connected.

#natural ingredients

Top Note

Most cries of “Oh, I love this scent!” at the perfume counter refer to the top note. It is a shame to declare your love in the first few minutes, buy the bottle, then discover it is not quite right when the scent changes thirty minutes later. But those convinced that fragrance is all intuition are especially likely to decide on first impressions, while beginners simply do not know better. Companies therefore pour money into developing the top notes.

Recently, niche brands have spoken out about this, sometimes making a selling point of spending most on the base notes. But that is how things used to be anyway. Perhaps preferences in fragrance have simply changed over time.

#top note #head note

Niche Fragrance

Brands championing “perfume as art,” born from frustrations such as being tired of market-researched, marketing-led fragrances, or being unable to create the perfume one wants because management has the final say. This gave rise to the myth that niche brands make better perfumes than fashion brands. We now have brands with absurd prices and others full of unoriginal copies. Be wary of a string of sales pitches such as “We’re niche,” “We use lots of natural ingredients,” or “It’s expensive, so it’s good.” Is there any love in it?

Niche itself does not refer to a perfume’s formula. As I always say, it has become a marketing method. It really is troublesome.
We were the originators and pioneers of niche fragrance. Frédéric Malle was second. None of the other brands can be called niche, nor are they meaningful brands.

Serge Lutens

#niche fragrance #niche perfume

Note

Used as in “an X note” when several ingredients are combined to create the scent of X. The word comes from musical notes, but unlike music, perfume is rarely composed using seven notes. As in painting, the more colors you use, the closer you move toward disorder.

Incidentally, a scent created by combining two or more of these notes is called an accord.

#note

Perfumer

In France, being a perfumer is a distinguished profession. At a large company, even a junior perfumer apprenticed to a master can earn a respectable salary. Sadly, what is required of an employed perfumer is the same as in other jobs: obeying the company. They must reconcile company instructions with their own ideas and create a scent that sells. Perhaps this also gives them a keen nose for whether a brand wants money or a wonderful fragrance.

#perfumer #nez #nose

Fragrance Concentration

The proportion of fragrance material bestowed upon a perfume. The idea of giving scent to almost odorless water truly is a gift from heaven; the Japanese word fukō, “bestowing fragrance,” is a wonderful one.

Yet it is also a word people suddenly want to use once they know a little about perfume. Thus emerges a species obsessed with high fragrance concentration, rather like certain drinkers who prize alcohol content. Just as a high alcohol content does not make a drink delicious, a high fragrance concentration does not make a perfume good. Remember that a sales pitch such as “a high-quality perfume with a high fragrance concentration” is certainly not an explanation of love for that perfume.

#perfume concentration #ratio of alcohol

Blotter

Also called a mouillette, it comes in many shapes depending on the brand: long and thin, square, rectangular or round. In French, mouillette originally means a thin strip of bread dipped into coffee or a soft-boiled egg. Perfumes originally had no spray mechanism, and essential oils generally still come in bottles without one, so the strip really is dipped.

The English word blotter, meanwhile, comes from “blot”: to absorb or soak up.

#blotter #mouillette #scent strip #smelling-strip

Middle Note

Said to be the part the perfumer most wants to express. In practice, only a mid-level perfume enthusiast—or a cautious middle-aged shopper—can wait to smell it before deciding whether to buy.

#middle note #heart note

Mainstream

Fragrances from famous fashion and cosmetics brands. For the last few decades, people further upstream in the fragrance world have tended to avoid this mainstream. The reasons are obvious. Perfumers are given deadlines—meaning that even an unfinished perfume becomes finished—and then: (1) marketing tests change the scent away from the perfumer’s intention; (2) similar perfumes result, sometimes under instructions to copy a popular scent; (3) a success spawns endless “Intense,” “Fresh” and other versions; and (4) the business becomes about slogans rather than scent.

Nevertheless, leading brands’ funds often allow excellent perfumers to work with good ingredients, so the results are not disastrous. Some wonderful perfumes emerge. Niche or maison fragrances rose in the late 1980s and 1990s, when the mainstream began using advertising: only thirty years have passed. In another quarter-century we shall see which survives—the mainstream, producing countless perfumes that quietly disappear within a few years, or niche perfumery, pursuing wonderful scents without abundant funds.

#mainstream #fashion fragrance #designers fragrance

Maison Fragrance

In contrast to the mainstream, these are brands built around perfume. Guerlain was once primarily a perfume house; is it LVMH’s strategy that cosmetics now seem more prominent? Unlike in Guerlain’s heyday, maison fragrance now refers to niche brands that spare neither time nor money in concentrating on the perfumer’s artistry. They are rather like societies for the protection of perfumers and artistic freedom, offering refuge to perfumers exhausted by mainstream work. But niche brands have multiplied so much that they now seem to release more perfumes annually than the mainstream. Some use their “niche” status as a marketing strategy. It has all become thoroughly confusing.

#maison fragrance

Musk

We often hear “I love musk,” but rarely meet anyone who can explain what musk is. Most imagine “something sexy that gives off sensuality, right?” They are not entirely wrong.

Musk falls broadly into three types: animal, plant-derived and synthetic. Animal musk was once widely used to give a scent distinctive depth, power and sensual richness. As the name suggests, it is a secretion from a gland near the musk deer’s reproductive organs—a revelation as startling as first learning what tongue or offal at a barbecue actually is. Its marvelous smell led to overhunting, and musk deer became protected as endangered animals. This natural material can no longer be used in perfume.

Synthetic and plant-derived musks took its place. Plant materials such as ambrette seed are often expensive, while synthetic musks of various scents are mass-produced cheaply. If a relatively inexpensive fragranced product—perfume, fabric softener or air freshener—says “musk,” it is usually synthetic musk. What Japanese people call the smell of laundry or detergent is precisely this, and its diffusion is no weaker than that of animal musk. People who say they love detergent but find perfume overpowering often do not realize they themselves are creating “scent pollution”; they simply do not know how to wear perfume.

#musk #musc

Base Note

The final stage. If it collapses, the encounter becomes “a good first impression, but no second date.” Hearing top, middle and base notes, you might imagine them appearing in sequence. It is more accurate to think in terms of which components remain on the skin longest. The base note is the foundation supporting the whole fragrance to the end. Scent is ultimately a collection of molecules, and some are present on your skin even without perfume. What you smell is therefore the combination of the perfume you apply and the scent already on your skin. If a perfume starts well on your skin but finishes badly, the ground—your skin—and the building’s foundations—the base notes—are not well matched. As your age, the season, your diet or where you live changes, that ground may well become soil in which a once-unsuitable perfume can bloom.

#last note #base note #dry down