Ingredients - The Perfume Society

Fragrances today are mostly a fusion of ingredients taken from nature – or inspired by nature – together with the synthetics (man-made ingredients) that are used to make them last longer, ‘carry further’, or stay ‘true’, when worn on the skin.

Here, you can read about literally hundreds of the different perfume elements in use today. If you know which ingredient you want to read about, you can either input the name into our ‘search’ box (top right). Or click on a letter of the alphabet below – and it’ll take you to a collage of all the ingredients that start with that letter. Alternatively, let your eye travel over the scrolling, rolling collage below – and click on whatever takes your fancy: a visual ‘lucky dip’…

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Instantly cooling and utterly refreshing, mint has been infused for centuries in various preparations to be taken as a herbal remedy for digestive complaints, to soothe inflamed skin and also to splash on as a tonic for the senses.

In Greek mythology, mint is seen as "the herb of hospitality^"- early records show mint was strewn over floors to deodorise and freshen rooms, as stepping on the leaves helped to spread its scent through the room, masking noxious odours best left undescribed...

Correctly known by the name Mentha (also known as mint, from Greek míntha) there are many differing varieties - the species ranging from 13-18 depending on who you ask, and proving rather indistinct to categorise exactly as hybridisation between the species occurs naturally. Indeed, there are so many varieties and cross-overs (see below for a selection from Wikipedia's extensive page), that to date, no one author has successfully categorised them all.

Mentha aquatica – water mint, marsh mint
Mentha arvensis – corn mint, wild mint, Japanese peppermint, field mint, banana mint
Mentha asiatica – Asian mint
Mentha australis – Australian mint
Mentha canadensis – American wild mint
Mentha cervina – Hart's pennyroyal
Mentha citrata – bergamot mint, orange mint
Mentha crispata – wrinkled-leaf mint
Mentha dahurica – Dahurian thyme
Mentha diemenica – slender mint

Mentha laxiflora – forest mint
Mentha longifolia (syn. Mentha sylvestris) – horse mint
Mentha piperita – peppermint
Mentha pulegium – pennyroyal
Mentha requienii – Corsican mint
Mentha sachalinensis – garden mint
Mentha satureioides – native pennyroyal
Mentha spicata (syn. M. viridis, M. cordifolia) – spearmint, curly mint (a cultivar of spearmint)^[10]
Mentha suaveolens – apple mint, pineapple mint (a variegated cultivar of apple mint)
Mentha vagans – gray mint

Highly aromatic, merely brushing against the dark green leaves releases the potent scent, all varieties of the plant have some common characteristics - mostly perennial, mint simply adores to be near water, pools and in partial shade.

Traditionally used as a medicinal herb - mostly in order to treat stomach ache and nausea - the Menthol mint essential oil (used at 40–90% concentration in compositions) has long been enjoyed for its skin-cooling and spirit-reviving properties in Colognes, perfumes and cosmetic products, and overall, mint is enjoying something of a resurgence in both male and female fragrances over the past few years.

Used by the handful for a bracing freshness or plucked by the leaf to add just a hint of breeze, mint is a favourite that's here to stay.

Smell mint in:

Les Couvent de Minimes Eau de Mâtines
Roos & Roos Mentha Religiosa
Tom Ford Private Blend Mandarino Di Amalfi
Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gioia Essenza
M.Micallef Ylang in Gold
Agonist Blue North

Musk

Can a perfume roar? Can it purr? Can it be ‘sex-in-a-bottle’…? If any single ingredient can create those effects, it’s musk. As the excellent fragrance blog Perfume Posse puts it, ‘Musk speaks carnally in whispers or shouts…’ And it’s in almost every scent we dab, spritz and splash onto our skins - because at the end of the day, most of us wear perfumes to feel more alluring…

But musk does more than this. It’s incredibly versatile, in a perfumer’s hands: it softens, balances, ‘fixes’ (adds staying power and keeps a fragrance on the skin, while stopping other short-lived ingredients from disappearing too fast). It smells like skin itself. It almost hypnotises…

And it’s controversial: the original musk came from a sex gland secretion from a specific a species of deer, the Tibetan musk deer, which became endangered - though since 1979 this creature has happily now protected by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Numbers of musk deer dwindled, unsurprisingly, because it took 140 musk deer to produce a kilo of perfume ingredient. But its use goes way back: musk makes its first appearance in the 6th Century, brought from India by Greek explorers. Later, the Arabic and Byzantine perfumers (including the famous Al-Kindi) perfected the art of capturing its aphrodisiac powers, and musk’s popularity spread along the silk and spice routes.

Of course we’ll never know someone, somewhere along the way, got the idea that it would be a good idea to try this potent ingredient out in a perfume: in its raw state, musk oil smells – well, a bit like poo... And yet, and yet – at the same time, strangely intriguing… A well-known German fragrance chemist, Phliip Kraft, brilliantly captures musk’s love-it-hate-it complexity. ‘The more one studies its character that of natural musk tincture, the more contrasting, vibrant and oscillating it becomes: repulsive-attractive, chemical-warm, sweaty-balmy, acrid-waxy, earthy-powdery, fatty-chocolate-like, pungent-leathery, fig-like, dry, nutty and woody, to give just some impressions’.

It’s said that if you added drops of natural musk oil to a handkerchief, you’d still be able to smell it 40 years later. Today, of course, it’s not the natural stuff that perfumers use, but a huge array of synthetic musks, ranging from sweet, powdery musks to almost metallic versions. Vast amounts of perfume industry research dollars have gone into creating alternatives to this cornerstone ingredient: patented notes like Galaxolide, Andoxal, Nirvanolide, Celestolide, Velvione, Helvetolide, among other inventively-named creations. (We secretly long for a job naming compounds like this...!)

Other ingredients, too – like extracts of ambrette seed, galbanum and angelica root – can also deliver a musky sensuality to a perfume. Although if you have trouble smelling musk, you’re not alone: ‘anosmia’ to some - or all - musk ingredients is actually pretty common…

Smell musk (or try to!) in:

Body Shop White Musk
Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur
J-Lo Glo
L’Artisan Parfumeur Mûre et Musc
Miller Harris L’Air de Rien
Narciso Rodriguez Essence
Narciso Rodriguez for Her
Nasomatto Silver Musk
Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan