Fragrance vocabulary: ten perfume words explained simply

Ten words are enough to talk about fragrance the way the trade does: note, accord, facet, family, sillage, longevity, concentrate, jus, blotter and flanker. Some describe the smell itself, some describe how it behaves in the air and over time, and the rest describe what is in the bottle and how it is sold. Many of them are French, and so are the concentration names on the label: Wikipedia's article on perfume points out that the terms used for a fragrance's concentration are all French expressions.

This class defines each word with its sources, lays them out in a table and ends with an exercise that puts them to work on a spice from your kitchen. Along the way you will meet a few neighbours that help: tenacity, line, linear.

Who decides what perfume words mean?

The French reference is the glossary of the French Society of Perfumers (Société française des parfumeurs, SFP), written in French. Its introduction explains why it exists: creators, manufacturers, the media, sales staff and consumers needed a shared language and vocabulary. This class leans on it first, translating as it goes, and adds English-language sources where they help.

These words travel well beyond the lab: onto brand websites and shop counters, into the fragrance pages of magazines such as Mademoiselle Bulle, and into conversations in the club. Some of them drift on the way, and general dictionaries do not always agree with the SFP. Where two sources disagree, you will see both.

Fragrance vocabulary at a glance

The table brings the ten words together, each with a one-line meaning and an example. The sections below take them one at a time.

Word	What it means	Example
Note	The characteristic smell of a material or a composition	a floral note, a top note
Accord	The effect of blending two or more materials	the chypre accord
Facet	One of the aspects you can pick out within a single smell	the powdery facet of vanillin
Family	A group of fragrances with a similar structure	the chypre family
Sillage	The trail of scent left behind by someone wearing perfume	a quiet sillage
Longevity	How long a fragrance stays noticeable; the SFP says tenacity	good longevity on a blotter
Concentrate	The weighed-out composition, before it goes into alcohol	the concentrate of an eau de toilette
Jus	For the SFP, the alcohol solution of a concentrate; for the Larousse dictionary, the concentrate or the perfume itself	the jus in the bottle
Blotter	A strip of absorbent paper dipped in a fragrance to smell it; mouillette or touche in French	smelling on a blotter
Flanker	A variation on an existing fragrance, sold under the same name	a lighter or more intense version

Note, accord, facet: how do you describe the smell itself?

The note is the basic unit. The SFP defines it as the characteristic smell of a raw material or a composition, such as a floral, chypre or amber note. Its glossary also names the three stages of a fragrance: the opening or top note, a first impression due to volatile materials; the heart note, which sets the theme; and the base note, which lingers once the other two have evaporated because it rests on the least volatile materials. A composition that keeps the same impression all the way through is called linear. Wikipedia's article on notes in perfumery adds a useful caution: the idea of notes is used mainly to market fine fragrances, and perfumers use it to describe approximate scents to non-specialists. For more, see the class on the fragrance pyramid and what it simplifies.

An accord is what happens when notes meet. The SFP defines it as the effect obtained by blending two or more raw materials or simple notes, with a harmony that depends on balanced proportions and the strength of each one. Like note, the word comes from music, and Wikipedia's article on perfume describes a fragrance in a musical metaphor, three sets of notes making a harmonious accord. One accord even gave its name to a family: chypre, which the SFP traces to the fragrance François Coty named Chypre when it came out in 1917, built mainly on oakmoss, cistus, labdanum, patchouli and bergamot. The chypre family page covers it in detail.

Facet is the only one of the three that the SFP glossary does not define. It keeps its everyday meaning: one side of something that has several. A material has facets the way a cut stone has faces. The Fragrance Ingredient Glossary of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) is a good illustration, since it describes each material with one primary descriptor and two others. Vanillin there is Gourmand first, then Vanilla and Powdery; aldehydes, the same document says, broadly suggest clean ironed linen. The club's pages on vanillin and aldehydes go further.

What is a fragrance family for?

A fragrance family groups fragrances with a similar structure. The SFP's classification of olfactory families, also in French, sorts feminine, masculine and unisex fragrances into seven fundamental groups, each divided into sub-families, and the society's glossary calls it a methodical ranking of families by structure. Calling a fragrance a chypre or a woody gives its framework in one word.

The family is a starting point, not the whole story: many SFP sub-families cross two families, such as woody citrus or musky floral. The class on the seven fragrance families and their sub-families walks through all of them.

Sillage and longevity: two words for two different things

Sillage and longevity often get mixed up, but they measure different things. Wikipedia's article on perfume describes sillage as the trail of scent left behind by a person wearing perfume, named after the French word for the wake a boat leaves in water, and the SFP glossary defines it the same way, as the impression left in the air by someone wearing a fragrance. It is what other people smell after you have walked past.

Longevity is how long you can still smell a fragrance, on skin or on a blotter. The SFP glossary uses the word tenacity, the property of a fragrance whose effect is especially persistent, and flags fixative as an inaccurate term for heavy materials meant to increase that tenacity. Sillage is about space, longevity about time. Concentration plays into both: the SFP credits the extrait's high concentration for its sillage, Wikipedia's article on perfume says intensity and longevity depend on the concentration of aromatic compounds, and the class on fragrance concentrations, from extrait to eau de cologne explains how.

Concentrate and jus: what is actually in the bottle?

The concentrate is the technical heart of a fragrance. The SFP uses the word for the composition as it comes out of preparation, once every ingredient in the formula has been weighed; concentrates are then added to alcohol to make extraits and eaux de toilette, or blended into other beauty products. Wikipedia's article on perfume calls the same thing perfume oil and says it usually contains tens to hundreds of ingredients. In the past, the SFP adds, the eau de parfum or eau de toilette in a line was the same formula at a lower concentration; today the variants can be different formulas.

Jus is the word whose meaning shifts most. For the SFP, it is a casual trade term for the alcohol solution of a concentrate, in other words what is in the bottle. The Larousse dictionary's entry for jus gives it two senses at once: the concentrate used to make a perfume, and the perfume itself. Stick with the SFP's definition, which keeps jus and concentrate apart.

Blotter and flanker: a workshop word and a marketing word

The blotter, mouillette or touche in French, comes from the workshop. The SFP glossary describes it as a glue-free, highly absorbent paper cut into thin strips, dipped in a raw material or a composition to judge its quality and follow how it develops. It is the tool behind the club's exercises, from training your nose with your kitchen cupboard to the sessions of the Learning to Smell circle.

The flanker comes from the market. The SFP glossary uses the English word: the lighter versions and other variants that relaunch an existing line can now be different formulas, called flankers. It also gives line, for all the products derived from one fragrance and sold under the same name, and déclinaison. Glossy's report on the business of perfume flankers calls them the sequels of the perfume industry and traces the idea back to launches such as Nina Ricci's Signoricci 2 in 1975, a redux of the 1966 Signoricci. The same article notes that flankers are almost nonexistent among true niche brands.

Exercise: describe a smell in five trade words

This exercise puts the vocabulary to work on a single material, with a small jar and a blotter, and nothing applied to your skin.

1. Pick a whole spice from your kitchen, a cinnamon stick, a vanilla pod or a few cloves, and put it in a small jar.
2. Smell it with one natural sniff and write down, in one word, the note that dominates: spicy, vanilla, woody.
3. Look for two facets, the way the IFRA glossary does for each material: one word for what comes right after the main note, another for what hides behind it.
4. Place the spice in a family, using the SFP classification.
5. For sillage and longevity, spray a fragrance you already own onto a blotter, leave it in a closed room, step out for a few minutes and come back in: what you notice as you walk in gives you the idea of sillage. Smell the blotter the next day: whatever remains is its longevity.

Then compare your words with another member who chose the same spice. Your facets will not match, and that is where the conversation starts.