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Small glossary for perfume lovers

Fresh: Often used by customers to talk about their perfume when they like it. But objective freshness does exist!

Vibrant: When the perfume has a nervousness. For example a note that runs through the fragrance like a wood, e.g. vetiver.
Smiling: Which has welcoming, friendly top notes that make you want to keep smelling it again and again.
Juicy: Has fruity notes such as pear and apple or other sour fruit, combined with citrus, all of which make you salivate.
Signed: What should always be the characteristic of a perfume: recognisable, identifiable, that leaves a trace.

Hook: A very catchy top note, also called a "hat", and therefore very volatile.
Sharp: When the top note is very, or even too, pungent, even aggressive.
Cocooning: Comfortable and enveloping notes such as white musk and vanilla, "pashmina" scent, regressive "cashmere".
Addictive: Often with red fruits or vanilla, caramel, chocolate, tonka bean, so gourmand, but one should be able to say that about a non gourmand perfume too. Just a fragrance you can't live without, a sweet drug!

 

 

Solar: Due to exotic notes such as frangipani, ylang-ylang, jasmine, magnolia, coconut, salicy notes that smell like warm sand, or sun-warmed skin. Beach and holiday smells like sun products, immortelle.
Powdery: smells like iris, violet, heliotrope, mimosa, dry scents that tickle the nose and are not sweet. Can be retro and reminiscent of talc and rice powder.
Milky: Very comfortable notes that give a creamy fragrance, such as sandalwood, milky notes (smell of hot milk, coconut milk) and also like certain yellow fruits, vegetal notes such as rice.
Dishevelled: To say to a perfumer that he could give more originality to his creation, to give him more of a surprising side.

Luminous: Effect of brightness, cheerfulness, optimism, given by citrus fruits, aqueous fruits, which sparkle, having nervousness, sparkling.
Sexy: A very subjective term, which can be attributed to oriental or amber notes, vanilla notes, more mystical notes such as incense, opoponax, benzoin. Or to the haunting, extrovert and narcotic white flower notes such as jasmine, tuberose, lily, orange blossom absolute, most of which have a natural component in their composition, namely indole. It is an animal note when this raw material is smelled itself.
Round: The opposite of dry, hard and vertical.
Butyric: Not glamorous, smells like rancid butter.

You can also hear terms like :

  • It has beautiful orchestration!
  • It is very faceted: the opposite of a simple and boring note. 
  • It is linear: the opposite of evolving and changing, i.e.: the same on all supports (olfactory touches, fabric, skin).
  • It is textured: full, fleshy, pulpy, very tactile, very full of rich natural ingredients, it has nice curves.

 

Sylvaine Delacourte perfumes

Discover Sylvaine Delacourte's brand with her Orange Blossom, Musk and Vanilla Collections. You can try them thanks to the Discovery Boxes (5 Eaux de Parfum x 2 ml) and rediscover these raw materials as you have never smelled them before.