In short
You build a smell vocabulary through practice, not by memorizing word lists: compare similar smells, describe the difference, and tie each word you use to a specific reference smell you can return to. In time, a word like green stops being a vague impression and becomes a precise working tool.
What you will learn
- Describe smells using source, quality and effect words
- Build a personal lexicon with reference smells
- Use comparison to find words for small differences
Before this lesson: How to Smell Raw Materials on a Strip
Why words matter
Most people find smells hard to name, for reasons the RUŌOD Journal article on describing smells explores. Perfumers need words anyway, for three practical reasons. They help you remember a material, they let you record a change between two trials, and they let you explain a problem to someone else. Our reference guide on how to describe a scent gives the working vocabulary. This lesson is the practice that makes it your own.
Three kinds of words
| Kind | What it describes | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Source | What it smells like | Lemon peel, cut grass, pencil shavings |
| Quality | A property of the smell itself | Waxy, powdery, metallic, sharp, creamy |
| Effect | What it does or how it moves | Lifting, diffusive, flat, clinging, transparent |
Avoid words that only record your reaction, such as beautiful or cheap. You may note those too, but keep them separate. They tell you about you, and they will not help you fix a formula.
Reference smells anchor the words
Two people can both say green and mean different things. A reference fixes that. Choose a specific and available smell for each word, and it becomes a definition you can check. Here are some starting points. These associations are widely used but not universal, so substitute your own where they fit better:
- Green, cut grass: cis-3-hexenol at high dilution.
- Waxy, soapy, metallic: a fatty aldehyde such as methyl nonyl acetaldehyde at high dilution.
- Powdery, violet: alpha-ionone.
- Animalic, fecal in strength, floral in dilution: indole at high dilution.
- Everyday references: a pencil for cedar, an orange peel for citrus, a spice jar for clove or cinnamon.
You do not need all of these yet. Kitchen and garden smells are a good start, and they cost nothing.
Comparison is what finds the words
If you stare at one smell, words tend not to come. Put two similar ones together and ask what separates them. Lemon and orange, for instance: which is sharper, which is sweeter, which is more like the peel, and which is more like juice? Everything you can say about that difference is vocabulary you did not have before.
When you have no word at all, try these prompts: Is it light or heavy? Dry or wet? Sharp or round? Warm or cool? Natural or chemical? Near or far? These are metaphors, but they work for many people, and they get you writing.
Practical exercise: Start a personal lexicon
Use ten smells from your kitchen, garden or shelf, plus any materials you own.
- Make a page with three columns: word, reference smell, and notes.
- Pick two similar smells, such as two spices or two citrus fruits. Smell one, then the other. Write three differences.
- Turn each difference into a word, and enter it in your lexicon with its reference.
- Repeat with other pairs until you have at least ten entries. Rest between pairs.
- A few days later, smell the references again and check whether each word still fits. Correct any that do not.
Keep the lexicon in your journal. It will grow throughout the course, and you can compare it with the terms in the perfumery glossary later.
You have done this well if each term in your lexicon is tied to a material you smelled, and you can describe two different materials without using the same word for both.
Common mistakes
- Borrowing words you cannot smell. Writing ambery because a review said so teaches you nothing. Use your own words until the trade terms mean something to you.
- Mixing reactions with descriptions. "Nice" is not a descriptor. Note it separately.
- Using too many words at once. Two or three accurate words are worth more than a dozen guesses.
Safety
Several materials named here are powerful and can be unpleasant at full strength. Smell them only in high dilution, on a strip, and never on skin. Handling comes in Level 3, so do not buy them just for this lesson.
Key terms
- Descriptor
- A word used to describe a smell, such as green, waxy or powdery.
- Reference smell
- A specific, repeatable smell that anchors a descriptor, so that the word means something definite.
Knowledge check
Written and reviewed by the RUŌOD Lab team. This is general education, not legal, regulatory, medical or safety advice. Example dilutions and exercises are for learning, are not validated products, and have not been safety-assessed. Completing a lesson confers no qualification. How we check these lessons.