Scentsyclopedia

Amber

Amber is a fossilised tree resin famed for its beauty and healing properties. As a scent, it’s a blend of ingredients that originate from tropical areas of India and Africa. It’s musky and intense, with leathery, spicy tones and sweeter notes of caramel and maple.

Aniseed

Aniseed, or Anise, is a pretty, flowering plant native to the eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. It has a sweet, soft scent that’s mild but packs a punch. It’s actually very similar to pure licorice, with an intense, root-like fragrance that’s a bit like caramel.

Bergamot

Bergamot is a citrus fruit, native to the regions of Southern Italy. It’s small and similar in scent to a sweet orange, but with a hint of spice. A beautiful, complex scent, Bergamot has been used for thousands of years to create inspiring and evocative fragrances.

Cactus

The Cactus flower has a light, fresh, summery fragrance, with citrus notes. It’s mild and refreshing, without the heavy richness of more powerful floral scents. It comes from anywhere where you might find arid deserts, such as Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Carrot Seed

Carrot seed, when used by perfumiers, has a woody scent with fresh, green top notes on a spicy, earthy base. The oil is distilled from dried seed and originates mainly from France. Its fragrance is close to a flower in the Iris family, the iris rhizome.

Cedarwood

Cedarwood oil has a balsamic, woody scent, with a lovely fresh undertone of citrus. Usually harvested from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, or in the dry landscapes of Virginia in the United States, it brings calm and comfort to fragrance.

Cinnamon

Spicy, powdery and sweet, Cinnamon gives any fragrance a gorgeous, comforting feeling. The oil is warm, woody, slightly fruity, peppery, a little like vanilla and is distilled from the bark of the Cinnamon tree, which is native to Southeast Asia.

Cypress

Cypress brings strong character and dry, spicy, woody notes to a fragrance. It gives a wild, green sharpness to a scent but a grounded, earthy feeling too. Oil is distilled from the leaves and twigs of the Cypress tree, which is native to the Mediterranean.

Elimi

Elimi comes from the fragrant resin of the Manila Elimi, a tree from the Philippines. It’s sharp, spicy, but lemony and invaluable as an incense ingredient. It’s also known as a ‘perfume-fixer’, effectively tethering other scents together for impact.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is native to Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania and has an unmistakable smell which is sharp, a little like rosemary, and adds airiness to perfumes. It also has more subtle, complex tones, with lush hints of the forest, honey, mint and citrus.

Geranium

Geranium is native to South Africa. If you crush a leaf, you’ll smell lovely citrus and fruit tones, with a hint of rose. It’s often known as the ‘other rose’, but is much less powdery, lemony and herbaceous, with a distinctly green scent.

Jasmine

Jasmine originates from delicate flowers found in eastern India, the Himalayas and China and has a rich, sweet, fruity and sensual fragrance, often described as musky. It’s wild, delightful and a universally attractive and popular scent.

Lavender

Lavender has a delicate, sweet smell that’s floral, herbal and evergreen. Originating in the Mediterranean climate, it’s traditionally used for calming the senses. When landing in Provence, it’s said that the Romans fell under its peaceful spell of ‘a thousand virtues’.

Lemon

Lemon is the ultimate in refreshing fragrance. It’s floral, fruity and uplifting, and an indispensable ingredient to perfumiers. First brought to Europe by Arabs in the 8th century, Lemon trees made their way to America, and now grow all over the world.

Lemongrass

The Lemongrass herb smells a lot like lemon but is fresher and lighter. The essential oil is traditionally used to help reduce anxiety, alleviate stress and fight depression. Native to India, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand, it’s cleansing, uplifting and energising.

Lime

Lime is bright and energising, lighter and sweeter than lemon, but more intense too. It’s a fruit native to India, where traditionally it was used to ward off evil spirits. Now it can be found growing all over the world, and its oil is distilled to be used in fragrance.

Mate

Mate has a foresty, herbal, tobacco-type fragrance and is used to add a ‘green tea’ effect to a scent. It comes from South America, where indigenous peoples first made the hot drink mate from the leaves of the yerba mate tree, a species of holly.

Mandarin

Mandarin originates in China and is sweet and tangy with notes of candied orange and a delicate, floral, neroli-like undertone. It’s used as a warm and soothing ingredient in aromatherapy treatments and is traditionally considered a symbol of good luck.

Neroli

Neroli is citrusy, floral, clean, green and ever-so-slightly bitter. It’s derived from the blossom of the bitter orange tree, grown originally in parts of India, East African and the Himalayas, but to many people it’s reminiscent of the Italian countryside.

Orange

Oranges originally come from China, but the word comes from the Old Persian, ‘narang’. The orange scent is fresh, vibrant, and energetic, making a fragrance clean and pristine. Combined with a spicy scent such as cinnamon, it creates a lovely, autumnal aroma.

Orange Blossom

Orange blossom is a beautiful, complex scent which is heady and floral, but at the same time fresh, innocent and soapy clean. It grows on the Brigaradier tree, originally found in China and India, but now found in the Mediterranean.

Palmorosa

Palmarosa is part of the lemongrass family, and its scent is soft and rosy with citrus hints. The Palmarosa plant is native to India but is now widely grown in Nepal and Vietnam. The oil has long been used to fragrance soaps, cosmetics and perfumes.

Patchouli

Patchouli is an aromatic, flowering plant from the mint family. It has a dark, aromatic scent that brings character and depth, but also holds freshness. It’s sensual and charismatic and is often used in oriental or woody fragrances.

Peppermint

Peppermint is native to the Mediterranean but is grown all over the world. It’s an unmistakable scent reminiscent of candy canes and sweets and has been used for thousands of years to relieve stress and aid peaceful, restful sleep.

Raspberry

Raspberry as a scent is tangy yet sweet, more complex and sophisticated than strawberry, but just as comforting and lush. Raspberry often appears as part of a ‘red berry accord’ in fruity or fruity-floral scents.

Rose

The Rose is possibly the most-loved flower in the world, often called the ‘Queen of Flowers’. In nature, roses come in many colours and different fragrances too. As such a multi-facetedq scent, it’s one of the most interesting ingredients in perfumery.

Sweet Clove

Sweet Clove has a powerful character but is quietly subtle too. The essential oil carries spicy, warm, camphorous notes, reminiscent of the comforting aromas of gingerbread, mulled wine or toffee apple, but also holds sensual amber and floral undertones.

Sugared Almond

Sugared Almond is a distinctive, soft, nutty fragrance with a deliciously sweet twist. Originating from Iran, almond trees spread to the Mediterranean and North Africa. The scent of almond oil is comforting, making us think of marzipan cakes and sunny climes.

Vanilla

Vanilla is a spice derived from Vanilla genus orchids, which are mainly found in Mexico. The plants produce a fruit that yields vanilla pods, which when they’re crushed, produce a soft powder with a sweet, warm fragrance of wood and cocoa.

White Musk

White Musk is a clean, smooth musk scent that lacks the harsher, animalistic notes of natural musk. It provides the foundation of many prestigious scents, but it’s also a popular scent in its own right.