This will sound silly: how do you know what individual notes smell like?

[h0tsoup]

Something that I've noticed as I've started to collect samples is that as much as I can identify very certain common smells (fruits, flowers, etc), there are still so many notes that I have NO idea what they would smell like individually, even though I've bought many perfume samples that contain them. Examples include certain types of woods, oakmoss, amber, and musk. Is this just something that you can develop a nose for as you go? Have you sought out these individual notes before, maybe in a class? It may just be that I don't have a very discerning nose 😅...the biggest example for me is that there are many fragrances that I've smelled that contain oakmoss, but I still probably couldn't pick it out of a lineup. It also becomes the case that when I'm not a fan of a scent, I can't tell which of the notes is off-putting to me, since I don't know what's what.

TLDR: Any recommendations on how to learn to recognize individual notes?

 

[hednic]

For me, if it's not a common smell, I try to do some research/reading of the note or accord and try to understand what it approximates and then go back to the scent and see if I can detect it in the fragrance.

 

[kosui no kaori]

For me, if it's not a common smell, I try to do some research/reading of the note or accord and try to understand what it approximates and then go back to the scent and see if I can detect it in the fragrance.

I do this as well.

 

[Reiu]

Personally? This is how I learn:



More realistically, hednic and Kosui have both given good thoughtful suggestions. I think. If you would like to go further, there are perfumes built around single notes of the sort you're curious about that can help serve as references for learning: Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan for amber for example, Pierre Guillaume Le Musc & La Peau for white musk, etc.

I'm sure Basenoters can help with suggesting ones to sample as well

 

[Shycat]

This is not a stupid question, otherwise I am an idiot. (No comments from the peanut gallery, please. Restrain yourselves!)

Amber is a blend of other notes that convey a style of perfume. I know patchouli is usually part of it. That's why you can see "white amber" as a note--it contains all the other aspects but leaves out patchouli.

The notes that you see listed in a perfume pyramid are the scents intended for consumers. They are often comprised of synthetic blends of aromachemicals.

When I was starting out, I ordered "single note" samples of many things. I also have samples of individual aroma chemicals. As I glance at their bin....idk, maybe 50. I have a lot from Perfumer's Apprentice, Snowdrift Farms, Perfumer's Supply House.

Nope...as it turns out, 65, but there are more than that because my original spree was on single notes in 1 ml samples and I don't see their little box. It was maybe 20. It's how I know what tonka bean absolute smells like, or ambroxen crystals.

I do not recommend this. They get very dusty.


edit--wait. One was something called "Christmas Cookie" and I found my little bottle of WinterKitty. So, 63.

 

[Mak-7]

First method will work only based on how good your imagination is, but even then - it will give you maybe 20% idea. Nothing beats the real experience, so i would suggest purchasing tiny samples for reference. You can read about champaca, but words dont do it justice, oak wood distilled is the creamiest wood i ever tried, musk ambergris and other animalics are so multilayered that only hands on experience will allow you to understand it.
Go to spice shops, botanical gardens, forest (real amber(not ambergris) is basically pine tar, and even a tincture of it is quite different from distilled pine/cedarwood).
If ur serious - buy samples, if you dont want to spend money - smell stuff thats around you wherever you go.

 

[Bonnette]

For me, it's a matter of memory, association, experience and imagination. I used to spend a lot of time smelling oils and resins in hippie and botanical shops, building up a vocabulary that I could extend (by association) to whole families of scents; experience allowed for imagination to fill in the gaps, accurately enough that notes in perfume descriptions made sense to me (even when I couldn't do literal translations). I might not smell exactly the same things that others refer to in descriptions - probably only a perfumer could do that - but I know enough about what things smell like to me, to give me a good idea of whether or not I'll be pleased with a perfume.

This is not a silly question at all, h0tsoup. The main thing is to enjoy the journey as you learn - be prepared for surprises, twists and turns, and glorious serendipities along the way.

 

[Salumbre]

For me, if it's not a common smell, I try to do some research/reading of the note or accord and try to understand what it approximates and then go back to the scent and see if I can detect it in the fragrance.

I do this as well.

This, basically.

 

[Adonna]

Welcome to Basenotes @h0tsoup ☮️ .
aside from the familiar, scent memory, and experimentation - samples/decants - internet research and curiosity. The Basenotes Community has been my most precious resource.
a~~

 

[thescentguru]

smelling the individual scents really helps. There are kits available, I forget which perfume supplier carried it, and you can buy Essential Oils (EO) for many. True deer musk, civet, castoreum, hieracium etc can all be obtained.

 

[Shycat]

Something that I've noticed as I've started to collect samples is that as much as I can identify very certain common smells (fruits, flowers, etc), there are still so many notes that I have NO idea what they would smell like individually, even though I've bought many perfume samples that contain them. Examples include certain types of woods, oakmoss, amber, and musk. Is this just something that you can develop a nose for as you go? Have you sought out these individual notes before, maybe in a class? It may just be that I don't have a very discerning nose 😅...the biggest example for me is that there are many fragrances that I've smelled that contain oakmoss, but I still probably couldn't pick it out of a lineup. It also becomes the case that when I'm not a fan of a scent, I can't tell which of the notes is off-putting to me, since I don't know what's what.

TLDR: Any recommendations on how to learn to recognize individual notes?

I learned what oakmoss smelled like by sampling. It took me a while but eventually I realized all the fragrances I just mortally hated had one thing in common...but now I know to avoid oakmoss like the plague. I can guarantee you that if oakmoss is listed in the base, I'm not going to like the fragrance. I now could pick out oakmoss from across a football field.

Other people just adore it. Want to roll on a mattress stuffed with it and cover up with a duvet full of it.

The first "real thing" sample I got, at no small expense, was ambergris--because it seemed like things I liked listed it as a basenote. And I was just so curious.

Genuine, expensive, not white I admit but very, very light gray, AMBERGRIS. To me it smelled exactly like the new tire section of Wal-Mart, with a bit of the adjacent car repair garage. Not a bad smell per se, but sure as hell not what I was expecting.


After that, I was rabid for note exporation. I mean, WTF.

 

[DeathArrow]

I would like to say that notes listed do not really reflect the contents. To make an analogy with wine, if someone mentions blueberries after tasing a glass of wine, it doesn't mean that the wine contains blueberries in any form, but rather that the taste reminds that person of blueberries.

Modern perfumes are made from many aroma chemicals and the notes listed mean the maker of the fragrance might want to make the person who wears it to think at specific smells.

To give some examples: perfumes that list leather as a note do not contain leather, perfumes that list water as a note do not contain water, perfumes that list vinyl, rubber or even asphalts as nites do not contain vinyl, rubber or asphalt.

So whatever way you chose, compare perfume notes across perfumes or compare with natural extracts won't be useful. More useful would be to proceed as an actual perfumer's apprentice, buy samples of most common aroma chemicals and try to identify them by smell. If you ever watch perfumer Aaron Terence Hughes reviews on YouTube, you will see that it is exactly what he does: he seldom speak of notes when he smells perfumes, he instead speaks about aroma chemicals he identifies by smelling.

 

[h0tsoup]

Thank you so much everybody for your help!!!!!!!!! This is incredibly useful for me and I really appreciate it

 

[AndyL]

It's already been mentioned above, but what you probably detect are accords built by combining multiple ingredients and blending them to create a facet within the fragrance... from the way I understand it.

 

[enframing]

I would like to say that notes listed do not really reflect the contents. To make an analogy with wine, if someone mentions blueberries after tasing a glass of wine, it doesn't mean that the wine contains blueberries in any form, but rather that the taste reminds that person of blueberries.

Modern perfumes are made from many aroma chemicals and the notes listed mean the maker of the fragrance might want to make the person who wears it to think at specific smells.

To give some examples: perfumes that list leather as a note do not contain leather, perfumes that list water as a note do not contain water, perfumes that list vinyl, rubber or even asphalts as nites do not contain vinyl, rubber or asphalt.

So whatever way you chose, compare perfume notes across perfumes or compare with natural extracts won't be useful. More useful would be to proceed as an actual perfumer's apprentice, buy samples of most common aroma chemicals and try to identify them by smell. If you ever watch perfumer Aaron Terence Hughes reviews on YouTube, you will see that it is exactly what he does: he seldom speak of notes when he smells perfumes, he instead speaks about aroma chemicals he identifies by smelling.

Being in the wine business, this is how I approach it as well. What it comes down to, just like in wine, is smell everything you can (in wine it's taste/drink everything you can). Keep a notebook and take notes. After a while you learn. It's also how one can learn what they like and do not like (and in what amounts).

 

[grizzlyjenkins]

Personally? This is how I learn:

View attachment 325322

More realistically, hednic and Kosui have both given good thoughtful suggestions. I think. If you would like to go further, there are perfumes built around single notes of the sort you're curious about that can help serve as references for learning: Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan for amber for example, Pierre Guillaume Le Musc & La Peau for white musk, etc.

I'm sure Basenoters can help with suggesting ones to sample as well

what are your suggestions for best essential oils sources/websites? where did you source the oils in the picture? Can’t see the websites

 

[Reiu]

what are your suggestions for best essential oils sources/websites? where did you source the oils in the picture? Can’t see the websites

Sorry for the late response, I just noticed this!

Several of them are from the now defunct White Lotus Aromatics. The animalic tinctures are from Dan Riegler at Apothecary's Garden (he is also on Etsy); I especially love his frankincense offerings by the way, if you're at all interested in those. JK DeLapp at Rising Phoenix Perfumery also offers animalics, along with a variety of other perfumery ingredients like ouds and Indian ruhs and attars (you can also wear these by themselves, of course).

For more general botanicals you have a lot of choice; Eden Botanicals has a fair amount of selection and informative notes on all their offerings, and Hermitage Oils has the widest selection I've seen if you're willing to pay for shipping from the EU. Those two are also both often frequented by perfumers, I believe.

AbdesSalaam of La Via del Profumo also offers many pre-diluted materials (both botanical and animalic) in trial-friendly sizes if you're just interested in finding out what things smell like in/as perfume without necessarily committing to blind purchases of bottles of essential oils that you might not have an immediate use for. If his perfumes are any guide then the quality of ingredients is stellar. I am thinking about purchasing some of these myself, in fact.

If you are willing to compromise a bit on quality for price I might suggest Miracle Botanicals, which is what I use for oils that go into my home fragrance/aromatherapy ultrasonic diffuser, since many of their 10 mls are priced in a range where I feel free to use them more liberally. They have less selection however, and some quality differences with the perfumers' offerings are noticeable. But they're still very good overall, much better quality and price than what you might find in physical stores that carry essential oils, and they offer GC/MS documentation on all their offerings which you don't see very often at that price point.

Hope this helps

 

[Bavard]

Specialty soap bars that feature notes such as patchouli, sandalwood, isoesuper, etc. are good.

 

[Ken_Russell]

As a rather belated and quite subjective/personal reply: mostly testing as many essential oils as possible, combined with as many fragrance testings (even if mostly not side by side) of as many individual fragrances as possible did eventually help.

Though identifying single notes and the ability to do so in a less deliberate and more naturally happening random process did not happen overnight-being still susceptible as of now, to quite frequently becoming distorted by variables, incomplete and/or too personal.