Reference
Note Glossary
The terms used across our product pages, defined plainly. Note pyramids are read top to base, in the order the fragrance unfolds on skin.
Concentration
Concentration describes how much fragrance oil is dissolved in alcohol. It predicts longevity and opening speed — not quality, and not strength in any simple sense.
- Eau de Toilette (EDT)
- Roughly 5–12% fragrance oil. Brighter and shorter-lived, typically three to five hours. Built to be reapplied, and better in heat.
- Eau de Parfum (EDP)
- Roughly 12–20% oil. The default for most modern fragrance — six to nine hours, with a slower and rounder opening than an EDT.
- Extrait de Parfum
- Roughly 20–30% oil. Less alcohol, so it opens quietly and needs fifteen to twenty minutes before it can be judged. Two sprays is usually enough.
- Perfume Oil
- Alcohol-free, applied to pulse points. Sits very close to the skin and projects almost not at all — deliberate, not a defect.
The note pyramid
Top notes are what you smell in the first minutes — small, volatile molecules that leave quickly. Heart notes carry the composition for the next one to three hours. Base notes are the heaviest materials and are what remains at the end of the day.
A pyramid is a description, not a schedule. The groups overlap, and on warm skin the whole thing moves faster.
Materials
- Ambergris accord
- A synthetic reconstruction of a marine, mineral, slightly animalic note. No animal product is used.
- Ambrette seed
- Musky, faintly pear-like. A plant-derived musk used where a clean skin note is wanted.
- Benzoin
- A warm balsamic resin. Sweet in the way that amber is sweet, without smelling of sugar.
- Birch tar
- Smoke and leather, distilled from birch bark. Powerful, and used in trace amounts.
- Cashmeran
- A woody-musky synthetic with a soft, slightly spicy warmth. Gives length to dry wood compositions.
- Guaiac wood
- Smoky, dry, faintly tarry wood. Sits between cedar and incense.
- Immortelle
- Maple-syrup and hay. Divisive at high concentration, excellent in trace.
- Iris root (orris)
- Cool, powdered, slightly earthy. One of the most expensive raw materials in perfumery.
- Labdanum
- A dark resin from rock rose. The backbone of most amber accords.
- Oud (agarwood)
- Resinous heartwood, medicinal and leathery. Sourced here from Assam and used at a level you can actually smell.
- Petitgrain
- Distilled from bitter orange leaves and twigs. Green and bitter where neroli is sweet.
- Tonka bean
- Almond, hay and tobacco. Reads as sweet without being gourmand.
- Vetiver
- Dry, rooty, faintly smoky grass root. Used as a floor under florals and woods alike.