- Latin name
- Heliotropium arborescens
- Family
- Borage family (Boraginaceae)
- Origin
- the scent is created in the laboratory
- Parts used
- practically no material is obtained from the flowers
- Raw materials
- heliotropin (piperonal) and powdery accords
- Extraction
- synthesis
- Olfactory group
- powdery floral, gourmand
- Position in the pyramid
- heart and base
- Synthetic substitutes
- heliotropin, vanillin, coumarin
Heliotrope is a small garden plant from Peru with dense clusters of tiny purple flowers. It smells wonderful, but hardly any material is obtained from the flowers, so in perfume its scent is recreated with the molecule heliotropin.
How it smells: powdery, sweet and tender: almond, vanilla, marzipan and a faint cherry shade, like a cherry pie. Heliotrope makes a fragrance soft, fluffy and nostalgic.
Heliotropin has been known in perfumery since the late nineteenth century and became one of the key ingredients of powdery fragrances. It gives that cosmetic softness many people remember from their grandmother's powder compact.
What it pairs with: with vanilla and tonka — powdery-almond gourmands, with iris and violet — cosmetic “powder”, with rose — a tender vintage bouquet, with musk — warm skin, with oud and incense — a soft oriental accord.
Good to know: “heliotrope” means “turning with the sun” in Greek: in antiquity people believed the plant's flowers followed the sun through the day.
Fragrances with Heliotrope
