Every fragrance page lists notes — bergamot, iris, sandalwood — and most people skim them. That is a shame, because the note list is the one honest thing on the page. It tells you what the fragrance will smell like in the first minute, the first hour and the fourth hour, which are three different things.
Aroma molecules evaporate at different speeds. Small, light ones (citrus, herbs, aldehydes) leave the bottle first and are gone soonest. Heavier ones (woods, resins, musks) hang on for hours. A perfumer arranges a fragrance so that it unfolds in that order, and describes it as a pyramid: top notes, heart notes, base notes.
The opening. Bright, sharp, immediate — and gone within fifteen minutes to half an hour. Citrus, green leaves, mint, marine notes. Top notes are what make you pick a fragrance up; they are not what you live with.
The body of the fragrance, arriving as the top fades and lasting a couple of hours. Florals, spices, fruits, tea. This is the character of the scent and the part worth reading most carefully.
The foundation. Woods, musks, leather, amber, vanilla, resins. They anchor everything above them and are what is still in the room at the end of the evening. If you dislike a base note, you will dislike the fragrance, whatever the top does.
Take The Cowboy, one of our leather fragrances: cardamom and iris over violet, papyrus and leather. “Over” is doing the work. Cardamom and iris open it — spicy, powdery, a little cool. Violet and papyrus give it a dry, papery heart. Leather is the base, and leather is what you get at 10 pm. If you love the idea of iris but leather leaves you cold, this is not your fragrance, and the note list told you so.
Compare The Beach: marine aldehyde, coriander and pink pepper over iris and seaweed. Same iris, completely different destination. The base is salty and green rather than warm and animalic, so the room ends up smelling of cold coastline rather than a leather chair.
On skin, a fragrance is at its base within a few hours. In a cold-air diffuser, the whole pyramid is released continuously, so the room holds top, heart and base in balance for as long as the machine runs. That is a large part of why cold-air scent smells more like the perfumer’s intention than a candle does; a flame burns the top off and leaves you with heat and base. It also means the note list is an unusually accurate description of what your room will actually smell like.
Notes group into families, and families are the fastest way to find fragrances you will like. We sort our 31 oils into nine: Bright Citrus, Aquatic & Marine, Garden Green & Herbal, Fresh Floral, Rich Floral & Tropical, Fruity Gourmand, Warm Woody, Spiced & Oriental, and Leather & Smoky. If you already know you like woody perfumes, start in Warm Woody and Leather & Smoky and read the base notes.
Every fragrance in the Wisp range lists its notes in this top-over-base form, and the Fragrance Finder sorts by family if you would rather start there.
Top notes are the light molecules you smell first and which fade within half an hour; heart notes are the body of the fragrance over the next couple of hours; base notes are the heavy woods, musks and resins that anchor it and remain for hours.
Because the lighter top-note molecules have evaporated, leaving the heart and base. This is normal and intended; the note list tells you where a fragrance is heading.
The base notes. They are what remains in the room at the end of the evening. If you dislike the base — leather, musk, vanilla, oud — you will dislike the fragrance regardless of a pretty opening.
Yes. A cold-air diffuser releases the whole pyramid continuously, so the room holds top, heart and base in balance for as long as it runs, rather than progressing through them as skin does.
