Violet

Two quite different things share this name, and it is worth knowing which one you are getting.

Violet flower is powdery, sweet and shy — soft to the point of being retiring, with a slightly cosmetic quality that some people love and others find old-fashioned. It comes from a family of molecules called ionones, which have the strange property of briefly numbing your sense of smell, so violet seems to come and go in waves.

Violet leaf is the opposite: green, crisp and faintly like cucumber, with no sweetness at all. Sharp where the flower is soft.

Both sit in the heart. In a diffused blend violet tends to soften the edges of whatever is around it rather than taking the lead, and that ionone flicker is more noticeable in a room than on skin.