Vetiver

A root, not a wood, and it smells like it. Vetiver is earthy and dry, with smoke in it and a bitter green edge — the smell of soil after rain, if the soil had been somewhere hot.

It divides people more than any other common note. Those who like it tend to like it a great deal. Those who do not usually describe it as damp or basement-ish, which is fair, and worth knowing before you commit to a 125ml bottle.

A base note and a tenacious one. Vetiver anchors a blend and stops bright notes floating off, and in a cold-air diffuser it is still perceptible long after everything above it has gone. Best in larger rooms, where it has space to settle.