Read before you reach for the bottle
Each guide answers one question, and every fact in it points to where it came from: a house’s own product page, a regulator, a published study. Where sources disagree, the page says so instead of picking the more exciting version.
Notes and materials
What the words on a note list mean, and what the materials behind them smell like.
- Perfume notes: top, heart and baseWhat each tier does, then 1,038 house pyramids counted to show where 24 common notes really land.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What is oud?The wood a tree makes after an injury, the molecules behind its smell, and the saffron houses keep putting next to it.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What does vetiver smell like?An oil from the roots of a grass: woody and lasting, why “earthy” is a flaw, and why cedar and grapefruit follow it.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What does bergamot smell like?Lemon from one molecule, floral from two others, one coast of Calabria, and the note that opens a third of all house pyramids.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What is musk in perfume?A deer's gland, five kinds of molecule behind one word, a gene that hides one of them from some noses, and the note on more lists than any other.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What does myrrh smell like?A resin from a thorny shrub of Somalia and Arabia, three molecules that make up most of its oil, and the incense it keeps company with.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What does palo santo smell like?A dry-forest tree from Mexico to Peru, an oil that is mostly limonene, a forest-floor story nobody has measured, and the two pyramids that name it.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- What does patchouli smell like?Leaves of a hairy herb from the Philippines, one molecule that leads its oil, supplier grades that smell unlike each other, and why rose shows up beside it so often.Reviewed 26 September 2026
- Perfume finder by notesPick up to five notes and see which fragrances list them all, searched across the note lists houses publish themselves.Reviewed 24 September 2026
One fragrance, read closely
What a house publishes for a single scent, set against what gets repeated about it.
- Creed Aventus notesCreed names nine notes. Most pyramids online add five more that the house never mentions.Reviewed 4 September 2026
- Parfums de Marly Layton notesTen notes from the house's own page, with the praline that tends to go missing elsewhere.Reviewed 4 September 2026
- Kilian Love, Don’t Be Shy notesFive notes from Kilian, and exactly how much is really known about Rihanna wearing it.Reviewed 15 September 2026
- Hugh Jackman’s cologneThe scent most pages name, the one fewer do, every source behind the claim, and what each house actually lists.Reviewed 25 September 2026
- Initio Side Effect notesA flat list instead of a pyramid, a vanilla the notes field leaves out, and a molecule named as a note.Reviewed 4 September 2026
Owning and wearing
Practical questions about the bottles already on your shelf.
- Does perfume expire?What US and EU labelling rules actually require, what air does to linalool and limonene, and why there is no honest number of years.Reviewed 24 September 2026
- Eau de toilette vs eau de parfum vs parfumThe oil percentages sellers publish, why your label cannot confirm them, and three Tom Ford scents whose parfum is a different list.Reviewed 24 September 2026
Put it next to your own shelf
A guide tells you what a fragrance is made of. Sentia tells you whether you actually wear it: add the bottles you own, log a wear in two taps, and see which ones earn their place.
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