Scent Notes

Understanding the Scent Pyramid

Ever wonder how a Scentsy Bar can smell exactly like your grandma’s world-famous cookies or wild lavender plucked straight from the French countryside? It’s not easy, so let’s break it down!

To start, here are a few facts to consider:

  • Thousands of natural and synthetic ingredients are chosen from to create fragrance formulas.
  • Most fragrances include both natural and synthetic ingredients. Here’s why
  • Scentsy fragrances typically include 30 to 60 unique ingredients each!

So how do we know which ingredients will play well together? Lots of experience, mostly, some trial and error — and little tweaks here and there make ALL the difference.

We start with the Scent Pyramid. This is a fragrance’s composition, made up of multiple fragrance notes (the ingredients that make up a scent). Each pyramid can be broken down into three categories:

Fragrance-Pyramid

  • Top notes are the first thing you smell when you open a Scentsy Bar. They’re also the first ingredients to dissipate and fade away as the Bar warms.
  • Mid (or heart) notes give a fragrance its true character. They last longer and make a bigger impression.
  • Base (or dry-down) notes go on and on. They ground a fragrance, balance it and make it last.

Every Scentsy fragrance consists of carefully selected top, mid and base notes to create a perfectly balanced scent.

Within the three categories of a Scent Pyramid live nine Fragrance Families. Every conceivable fragrance note falls within one of these families:

TOP NOTES:

citrus-1024x200 Citrus
Fresh, clean, tart or sparkling. Includes fruits like mandarin, bergamot, lime, grapefruit and lemon.

mint-1024x200 Green
Herbaceous, grassy or minty. Think of basil, spearmint, peppermint or thyme.

ocean-1024x200 Ozonic

Crisp, fresh, marine or airy. Composed of synthetic ingredients like calone (like the light, watery scent of the seashore) or aldehydes (capable of simulating many different scents).

MID NOTES:

floral-1024x200 Floral

Soft, full-bodied, heady or sweet. Includes flowers like rose, muguet (lily of the valley), jasmine, mimosa and gardenia.

fruity-1024x200 Fruity

Juicy, ripe or sweet. Such as peach, raspberry, melon, apple or strawberry.

spice-1024x200 Spice

Dry, warm or rich. Think of pepper, clove, nutmeg or cinnamon.

BASE NOTES:

gourmond-1024x200 Gourmand

Creamy, baked or edible (just don’t really try to eat our fragrance products!). Notes include vanilla, caramel, cocoa, brown sugar or butter.

woody-1024x200 Woody

Earthy, green, dry or resinous. Notes like sandalwood, patchouli, fir, balsam, cedarwood or olibanum (frankincense).

musk-1024x200 Musk

Sweet, powdery or animalic. Synthetic musks, including ambrettolide or galaxolide.

We do a lot of experimenting with an initial fragrance design — a little more vanilla here, a little less jasmine there — and test it until we get it just right. We often make tiny tweaks to round out a fragrance’s character or make it last longer. Each scent pyramid is totally unique!

The final test happens after we put the fragrance in the catalog. That’s when we find out how much you love it — or not!

Understanding the Scent Pyramid is a great way to explore new fragrance experiences. Let’s say your favorite scent is Luna. (Good choice!) This fragrance is full-on floral: jasmine, sweet pea, freesia. Odds are you’d also really enjoy Love Story, a floral fragrance that features jasmine, or the freesia-infused Sheer Innocence.

Your Scentsy Consultant can help you explore even more options. Check out their Scentsy website for a fun “Find a Fragrance” tool that helps you compare fragrance notes.

Don’t have a Consultant? Find one at scentsy.com.

Comments

  1. Pingback:Scentsy Scents - JanaFlamelessCandles

  2. Heather Llanes

    I love the scent pyramid! It really helps explain how fragrance works. Scentsy has the best fragrances to choose from. I still open and smell every scent I receive like a kid in a candy store.

  3. Jessica Long - Consultant #95684

    Are there specific synthetic ingredients used in every Scentsy bar? I have a customer who wants to know what the wax is made of?

    • Scentsy

      Scentsy fragrances are created with SAFE natural and synthetic ingredients to offer the widest range of scent experiences. Here is a great blog post that talks in detail about Why we use synthetics in Scentsy Bars.

  4. Enaea

    I have friends that are extremely allergic to Lavender. ‘Fragrances ‘ doesn’t cut it for me to ensure it is safe to use in their vicinity or store anywhere near them. Is there a list somewhere of Lavender free scented products?

    • Scentsy

      While we don’t have an official list of all Lavender free scented products that we offer, we would suggest avoiding those that contain Lavender in the name and description if there are allergy concerns with that specific ingredient. Feel free to contact our team at 877-855-0617 if you have any questions regarding certain fragrances. ?

  5. Nesstate Flora

    Informative post
    Thanks for sharing the blog

Comments are closed.

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap