A Perfumer's Guide to Popular Floral Fragrance Profiles
Rosa (Rose)
Olfactory Character: The undisputed queen of perfumery, rose offers a spectrum from bright and fresh to deep and honeyed.
Key Varieties:
Rosa damascena (Damask Rose): Rich, warm, and intensely floral with wine-like, fruity undertones. The Bulgarian and Turkish varieties are prized for their complexity.
Rosa centifolia (May Rose): Rounder, sweeter, and more honeyed than damascena. The Grasse variety is legendary for its opulent, velvety character.
Rosa rugosa: Greener, more transparent with tea-like facets and a lemony brightness.
Extraction Notes: Rose absolute (solvent extraction) is richer and more honeyed; rose otto (steam distillation) is lighter, greener, and more transparent with a distinctive mentholic top note.
Perfume Applications: Heart to base note. Blends beautifully with oud, patchouli, violet, geranium, and citrus.
Jasminum (Jasmine)
Olfactory Character: Intensely narcotic, heady, and indolic with fruity-green nuances. Often described as both carnal and ethereal.
Key Varieties:
Jasminum grandiflorum (Royal Jasmine): More transparent, green, and tea-like. Grasse jasmine is considered the finest expression—delicate yet rich with fruity facets.
Jasminum sambac (Arabian Jasmine): Rounder, creamier, more intensely indolic with orange blossom and lactonic notes. Higher in methyl anthranilate, giving it a grape-like sweetness.
Extraction Notes: Jasmine absolute is the standard. The flowers must be picked at night when their scent is strongest. Concrete and absolute production requires enormous quantities of blooms.
Perfume Applications: Heart note. The backbone of white floral compositions. Pairs with tuberose, orange blossom, ylang-ylang, sandalwood, and vanilla.
Lavandula (Lavender)
Olfactory Character: Aromatic, herbaceous, fresh, and slightly camphoraceous with coumarinic undertones in the drydown.
Key Varieties:
Lavandula angustifolia (True Lavender): Clean, soft, floral-herbaceous with sweet hay-like notes. The finest quality comes from high-altitude French crops.
Lavandula latifolia (Spike Lavender): More camphoraceous and sharp with eucalyptol notes, less floral refinement.
Lavandin (Hybrid): More herbaceous and less sweet than true lavender, with higher camphor content. Economical for large-scale use.
Perfume Applications: Top to heart note. Essential in fougère compositions. Blends with bergamot, rosemary, oakmoss, coumarin, and vetiver.
Cananga odorata (Ylang-Ylang)
Olfactory Character: Powerfully sweet, creamy, narcotic with banana-custard and spicy-balsamic facets. Intensely tropical and heady.
Quality Grades:
Extra: The first distillation fraction—most floral, delicate, and expensive with pronounced jasmine-like facets.
First, Second, Third: Increasingly woody, spicy, and less refined.
Complete: All fractions combined—fuller bodied and more economical.
Perfume Applications: Heart to base note. Use with restraint; easily dominates. Classic in oriental and floral compositions. Pairs with jasmine, rose, sandalwood, patchouli, and vanilla.
Citrus aurantium (Orange Blossom/Neroli)
Olfactory Character: Fresh, luminous, honeyed-floral with green and slightly medicinal facets. Both innocent and sophisticated.
Extraction Types:
Neroli (steam distillation): Lighter, more transparent, with pronounced petitgrain-like freshness and subtle bitterness.
Orange Blossom Absolute: Richer, sweeter, more indolic and honeyed with heavier floral depth.
Perfume Applications: Heart note. Creates radiant, clean florals. Essential in cologne compositions. Blends with jasmine, tuberose, rose, petitgrain, and musk.
Polianthes tuberosa (Tuberose)
Olfactory Character: Creamy, buttery, intensely narcotic, and animalic. The most carnal of white florals with rubbery-green and spicy nuances.
Olfactory Complexity: Opens with medicinal, mentholated greenness before revealing creamy, lactonic, almost fatty richness. Contains natural salicylates giving wintergreen-like freshness alongside its opulent body.
Perfume Applications: Heart to base note. Extremely powerful; use sparingly. The soul of grand white floral bouquets. Pairs with jasmine, orange blossom, coconut, ylang-ylang, and sandalwood.
Iris (Orris Root)
Olfactory Character: Powdery, woody-floral, elegant, and restrained with violet-like, earthy-rooty, and buttery facets. Distinctly refined and expensive.
Key Note: The fragrance comes from the rhizomes (roots), not the flowers. Iris pallida and florentina must be dried and aged 3-5 years before extraction to develop irone molecules—the signature violet-powder aroma.
Perfume Applications: Heart to base note. Provides structure and sophistication. Used for powdery elegance in florals and chypres. Blends with violet, mimosa, rose, vetiver, and aldehydes.
Viola odorata (Violet)
Olfactory Character: Green, powdery, slightly woody with cucumber-like freshness and ionone sweetness.
Extraction Challenge: Violet flowers yield very little absolute and it's prohibitively expensive. Most violet notes in perfumery are recreated using ionones (from iris) and synthetic violet leaf notes.
Natural Violet Leaf Absolute: Green, cucumber-like, fresh, and slightly metallic—quite different from the powdery floral violet scent.
Perfume Applications: Top to heart note. Creates soft, nostalgic, romantic florals. Pairs with iris, rose, cassie, and woody notes.
Gardenia
Olfactory Character: Creamy-white, velvety, intensely narcotic with coconut-like and peachy nuances. Lush and tropical.
Extraction Note: Natural gardenia absolute is rarely used due to poor yield and fragility. Most gardenia in perfumery is a "reconstitution"—an accord built from jasmine, tuberose, ylang-ylang, and synthetic molecules like styrallyl acetate.
Perfume Applications: Heart note. Creates lush, creamy white florals with vintage glamour. Works with tuberose, coconut, jasmine, and sandalwood.
Syringa vulgaris (Lilac)
Olfactory Character: Fresh, green-floral, delicate, and innocent with aldehydic sparkle and slightly indolic warmth.
Extraction Note: Like gardenia, true lilac doesn't yield a viable extraction. Lilac in perfumery is entirely recreated using combinations of terpenes, phenylacetaldehyde, heliotropin, and other materials.
Perfume Applications: Top to heart note. Evokes spring freshness and nostalgia. Often paired with rose, violet, heliotrope, and green notes.
Convallaria majalis (Lily of the Valley/Muguet)
Olfactory Character: Fresh, green-floral, dewy, clean with a delicate sweetness and slightly aquatic quality.
Extraction Note: Cannot be extracted naturally in commercial quantities. The muguet note is entirely synthetic, built primarily around hydroxycitronellal and other molecules that capture that fresh, spring morning character.
Perfume Applications: Top to heart note. Creates fresh, clean, innocent florals. The backbone of "soapy" florals. Pairs with rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, and green notes.
Osmanthus fragrans
Olfactory Character: Apricot-fruity, leathery, woody with tea-like delicacy and honey nuances. Uniquely bridges floral and gourmand.
Extraction Notes: The tiny flowers yield a precious absolute with an extraordinary aroma profile—simultaneously fruity (apricot, peach) and leathery-suede-like. Chinese osmanthus is highly valued.
Perfume Applications: Heart note. Adds fruity-floral complexity and sophisticated suede facets. Blends with leather notes, black tea, plum, and woody notes.
Michelia champaca (Champaca)
Olfactory Character: Spicy-floral, warm, tea-like with peachy-fruity undertones and incense-like depth. More masculine than most florals.
Regional Notes: Sacred in India and Southeast Asia. The absolute has distinctive spiced-tea character with magnolia-like floralcy and a subtle funkiness that adds intrigue.
Perfume Applications: Heart to base note. Adds exotic warmth to oriental and woody compositions. Pairs with sandalwood, cardamom, rose, and amber.
Boronia megastigma
Olfactory Character: Intensely fruity-floral with black currant, violet, and tea-like facets. Remarkably powerful for such a small flower.
Extraction Notes: This Australian native produces an absolute with extraordinary diffusion and ionone-rich character—reminiscent of violets, cassis, and freesia combined.
Perfume Applications: Top to heart note. Adds fruity-floral radiance and violet facets. Use sparingly due to intensity. Blends with rose, violet, cassis, and citrus.
Mimosa (Acacia dealbata)
Olfactory Character: Powdery, honey-sweet, green, and anisic with violet and cucumber undertones. Delicate yet distinctive.
Extraction Notes: The pompom-like flowers yield an absolute that's both floral and woody, with a distinctive powdery-green character and natural violet facets from ionones.
Perfume Applications: Heart note. Adds powdery softness and honey sweetness. Essential in powdery florals and chypres. Pairs with violet, iris, cassie, and heliotrope.
Blending Considerations
Temperature: Floral notes vary in "temperature"—lavender and muguet read cool/fresh, while tuberose and ylang-ylang are warm/hot.
Indolic Character: The degree of indolic richness (animalic, heady, potentially fecal at high concentration) varies dramatically: tuberose and jasmine sambac are highly indolic; rose and neroli are less so.
Dosage: White florals (jasmine, tuberose, ylang-ylang, gardenia) are extraordinarily powerful. Start with dilutions and build gradually. These can easily overpower a composition.
Natural vs. Synthetic: Modern perfumery combines natural extracts with synthetic molecules (often identical to nature-occurring compounds) to achieve stability, consistency, and complexity impossible with naturals alone.
