A magazine about scent and what the label says
Special
Four tools that turn reading about scent into an experiment. They run in your browser, remember nothing and offer nothing for sale.
Scent Compass
Few people can name the fragrance family they are after, but most know whether they want to smell fresh or dark. That is where the Compass starts: pick one of eight directions, then a shade of it, and finally a note.
The result is not a product but a profile.
The result is not a product but a profile. It shows the fragrance family, the notes to look for in a pyramid and the archive fragrances that list them. In How to choose a perfume, the Compass is step one.
Note Atlas
The atlas sorts 15 notes by family, typical position in the pyramid and impression. The filters combine: show only base notes that come across as smoky, for instance.
Every note has its own page with a label: what it is obtained from, whether the natural or synthetic form is used, what it pairs with and the name it goes by on a cosmetics label. And by the way: amber is not fossil amber.
Concentrations
The same name on a bottle does not mean the same contents. The slider runs through the usual forms of fragrance and shows, for each, the indicative share of fragrance compound, its character and how it behaves when worn.
No regulation lays down what percentage an eau de parfum must contain.
No regulation lays down what percentage an eau de parfum must contain. The ranges are therefore established values from two sources that differ in the details, and the page says so openly. They also feed into Fragrances by season.
Ingredients
Aqua, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Parfum, Linalool, Limonene, Citronellol.
Ingredient Decoder
Type one name from the ingredient list and the decoder tells you what the substance is, why it is in the product, where it is usually found and what EU law says about it. It knows 92 entries, from glycerine to the fragrance allergens added in 2023.
For background, read How to read a cosmetics ingredient list and Fragrance allergens.
Every fragrance in the archive comes with six blotters showing how fresh, floral, sweet, spicy, woody and dark its published pyramid is. It is an editorial assessment, not a laboratory measurement; the method and the full table are in About the magazine.