The Notes

A note is a single smell you can pick out of a fragrance: the bergamot at the start, the vetiver beneath it, the leather at the end. Perfumers describe a composition in three layers of notes, because the materials in it do not all leave the skin at the same pace.

Top, heart and base

The top notes are the lightest materials, the ones that evaporate first: citrus peel, juniper, a green resin such as galbanum. They are what you smell in the first minutes. The heart follows as the top fades, and it is where a fragrance shows its character: flowers, leaves, spices, tea. The base is made of the heaviest materials, woods, mosses, resins and leather, which evaporate slowly and arrive last. The base is what the person beside you notices at the end of the day.

The three are not separate courses served one after another. They overlap, and a well-made fragrance moves from one to the next without a seam, the way a morning becomes an afternoon.

The notes in our six

Each of our eaux de parfum lists three notes for each layer, and this glossary takes the ones people most often ask about: what they are, where they come from, what they smell like and how perfumers use them, with the HERITAGE fragrances that carry each one.

Green

• Galbanum An Iranian gum resin: bitter, sappy, sharply green, with a pepper edge. In Racing Green.
• Fig Leaf The green, milky smell of the fig tree, built as an accord. In Henley.

Citrus and blossom

• Bergamot The Calabrian citrus behind Earl Grey and the first eau de Cologne. In Racing Green, The Library, and Henley.
• Neroli and Orange Blossom One bitter orange tree, four materials: blossom, leaf, twig and peel. In The Orangery, Henley, and Saddle Room.

Roots, woods and moss

• Vetiver The root of a tropical grass: earthy, woody, smoky and faintly green. In Racing Green and Henley.
• Orris The aged iris root that smells of violets, powder and cool earth. In The Library and The Orangery.
• Cedarwood Dry, woody, pencil-shaving cedar, from junipers and true cedars alike. In Racing Green, The Library, and Henley.
• Oakmoss A lichen from oak bark: damp, green, bitter, the base of the chypre. In Racing Green.

Heath and hill

• Juniper The gin berry: cold, resinous and piney, from a small northern conifer. In Highland.
• Heather The moorland shrub of late summer: honeyed, dry and faintly medicinal. In Highland.

Leather, hay and tobacco

• Leather How perfumers build the smell of saddle, glove and suede. In Saddle Room and Racing Green.
• Hay Cut grass, dried in the sun, and the coumarin that sweetens it. In Saddle Room.
• Tonka Bean A wrinkled seed that smells of hay, almond and vanilla. In Saddle Room.
• Tobacco Leaf Cured leaf, honey and hay, with no ash in it. In The Library.

Smoke and resin

• Peat Smoke and Smoky Notes Bog fuel, whisky kilns, pine-smoked tea and how perfumers build smoke. In Highland and Saddle Room.
• Amber Not a stone or a whale: a warm accord of resins and vanilla. In The Library and Highland.

If you would rather smell them than read about them, the Discovery Set holds all six of our eaux de parfum in 2 ml atomisers.