This spicy top note adds a layered vibrancy to complex accords. As a first impression, cardamom feels fresh and airy, but soon shifts to reveal a warmth that is both sweet and woody. Often likened to the aromatic effects of citrus notes, cardamom can be revitalizing with its zestful kick. Cardamom is particularly well suited to woody, chypre and ambery fragrance families.

Mint’s bracing, fresh, and sweet spice energizes perfume with its healthy, palate-cleansing bite. It’s snowy cool edge sharpens sweeter citrus notes, and provides an excellent contrast for heated spices like cardamom, pepper, and coriander. Mint is similar to lavender’s fresh, breathtakingly clean scent, but stays very cool and isn’t as soapy or herbal as lavender can be. It’s sharp, green, mentholated energy is a perfect accent to winter’s chill, and offers sweet relief from heavy and humid summers.

Vetiver is a profoundly earthy note with dry, woody facets that recall a soft, smoky warmth. It is an intense, grounding scent with surprising undertones of mildew and even grapefruit. For the perfume fan that loves the earthy smell of the woods, nothing beats vetiver. Vetiver is grass whose roots create a smoky, mossy, mineral scent when distilled. It is one of the most complex ingredients found in fragrance, with over 150 separate aromatic compounds, and it also acts as one of the best fixatives available to perfumers, which accounts for its frequent presence in fragrance. There’s also nothing quite like the scent of vetiver. It’s both immediate and ancient, with a similar smell to the soft earth of virgin forests.

Pine