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Reference59 notes8 families

Perfume notes

Perfume notes are the individual smells a fragrance is built from, grouped by how fast they evaporate: top notes open it, heart notes carry it, and base notes are what lingers hours later.

01Notes in this guide
59
02Families
Eight
03Pyramid
Top, heart, base
04Sources
Our own pages
The notes pyramid

Top, heart and base: when each note arrives

Different molecules evaporate at different speeds, so a perfume changes as it dries down. Every note in this guide sits in one or two of these three layers.

From our page: Top, Middle, Base: How the Notes Pyramid Actually Works
Every note, by family

Browse the notes

Each page says what the note smells like, where it sits in the pyramid, its family and what it pairs with, in words taken from our own family guides and journal.

Citrus

The citrus family →

Bergamot, lemon, neroli and grapefruit: perfumery's brightest family.

Floral

The floral family →

Perfumery's largest family: rose, jasmine, tuberose and peony.

Spicy

The spicy family →

Pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and saffron, rarely worn alone.

Gourmand

The gourmand family →

Vanilla, tonka, caramel and coffee, worn close and warm.

Resinous

The resinous family →

Amber, labdanum, benzoin, leather and tobacco: winter warmth.

Woody

The woody family →

Cedar, sandalwood, oud and vetiver, worn close to the skin.

Earthy

The earthy family →

Oakmoss, patchouli and vetiver: the chypre backbone.

Aromatic

The aromatic family →

Lavender, mint, rosemary and sage: the classic fougere.

Glossary

Notes and accords, defined

Accord
A blend of two or more raw materials that creates a single perceived smell. Most fragrances are constructed from a small number of accords rather than dozens of individual notes.
Aldehyde
A class of synthetic and natural compounds with a sparkling, slightly waxy, sometimes soapy character. Famously dominant in Chanel No. 5.
Ambergris
A waxy substance originally produced by sperm whales, valued in perfumery as a fixative and base note. Almost always synthetic today (ambroxan).
Amber
An accord of warm, sweet, slightly powdery materials, traditionally combining labdanum, vanilla, and benzoin. Not a single note.
Attar
A traditional concentrated perfume made by distilling botanicals into a sandalwood or other carrier oil, common in the Middle East and South Asia.
Base note
The longest-lasting layer of a fragrance, perceived hours after application. Common base notes include sandalwood, oud, vanilla, white musk, amber.
Bergamot
A small bitter citrus fruit grown mainly in Calabria, Italy, that produces one of the most-used top notes in perfumery.
Chypre
A fragrance family built around a citrus top, a floral heart, and an oakmoss-labdanum base. Mitsouko by Guerlain is the canonical example.
Citrus
A fragrance family characterised by bright, sparkling top notes from fruits like bergamot, lemon, lime, grapefruit, mandarin.
Floral
The largest fragrance family, built around flower notes such as rose, jasmine, tuberose, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, iris.
Fougère
A fragrance family combining lavender, oakmoss, coumarin, and often geranium. The traditional structure of classic men's colognes.
Fresh
An umbrella descriptor for fragrances that smell clean, airy, or aquatic, including marine, ozonic, herbaceous, and citrus profiles.
Gourmand
A fragrance family built around edible-smelling notes like vanilla, caramel, chocolate, almond, coffee. Angel by Mugler defined the modern category.
Green
Notes that evoke crushed leaves, cut grass, or stems. Often built around galbanum, violet leaf, or tomato leaf.
Heart note
Also called the middle note. The body of a fragrance that emerges 15 to 60 minutes after application and lasts a few hours.
Iso E Super
A widely used synthetic molecule with a soft, woody, ambery, slightly cedar-like character. The defining material of Molecule 01.
Leather
An accord that smells of cured hide, often built from birch tar, isobutyl quinoline, castoreum, or saffron.
Moss
Most often oakmoss, a lichen used as a fixative and base in chypre fragrances. Modern formulations use restricted oakmoss derivatives or synthetics due to IFRA limits.
Musk
Originally an animal-derived material, today almost always synthetic (white musks, polycyclic musks). Provides warmth, depth, and skin-like sensuality.
Notes pyramid
The standard three-tier representation of a fragrance: top notes evaporate fastest, heart notes follow, base notes anchor the dry-down. An approximation, not a strict timeline.
Oriental
An older industry term for warm, often spicy, resinous, vanillic fragrances. Many brands now use 'amber' as a more accurate descriptor for the same family.
Oud
Also agarwood. A resinous wood produced by Aquilaria trees infected with mold. Deeply complex, animalic, smoky, sweet. One of the most expensive raw materials in perfumery.
Powdery
A descriptor for fragrances with a soft, cosmetic, slightly dusty quality, often built from iris, violet, heliotrope, vanilla, or musk.
Resin
Sticky botanical exudates such as benzoin, frankincense, myrrh, labdanum, and styrax. Used as base notes and fixatives.
Spicy
A descriptor for fragrances featuring spices: pink pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, saffron.
Top note
The first impression of a fragrance, perceived in the first 15 to 30 minutes. Usually citrus, herbs, or light fruits.
Woody
A family of base notes including sandalwood, cedar, vetiver, patchouli, oud, guaiac, gaiac, and synthetic woods like Iso E Super.
From the journal

Go deeper

Find the perfumes built from the notes you love.

Fragnatique reads every perfume down to its notes and scores it against your own taste, with the reason behind each match written out.

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