Orchid
A soft, creamy floral scent with hints of sweetness, powder, and sometimes fruit.
You may know it from a scented orchid houseplant
Where it comes from
Usually built from aroma chemicals because orchids provide no practical perfume extract.
Worth knowing
“Orchid” is usually a perfumer’s fantasy, not scent extracted from orchid flowers.
About orchid
In perfumery, orchid is a constructed accord. A retail glossary at Premiere Peau says there is no orchid essential oil and no orchid absolute on the market. Headspace capture has recorded the volatile profiles of some fragrant orchid species, and the same glossary calls these research curiosities with no commercial product behind them.
A perfumer interviewed by Cafleurebon explains the gap this way: orchid flowers do not lend themselves to being grown in mass quantities for oils, absolutes or oleoresins, so their scents get reconstructed. The materials named for an orchid accord there are benzyl and amyl salicylate for diffusion, phenylethyl alcohol, geraniol, linalool, Hedione, and indole with traces of animalic materials.
The Good Scents Company lists other materials with an orchid facet, among them hexyl, isoamyl and prenyl salicylates, farnesyl acetate, clover nitrile and magnolia leaf oil. Its odor listing for orchid reads green, floral and waxy, with muguet and rose-like sides.
One orchid does give perfumery a material. Vanilla comes from the cured seed pods of Vanilla planifolia, and Premiere Peau calls it the only commercially significant aromatic product of the whole orchid family. A PMC study of the species measured 0.53 g of vanillin per 100 g of fresh green bean after acid hydrolysis.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Orchid in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Orchid most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Orchid
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Orchid.