What's That Smell? HELIOTROPE

In the "What's That Smell?" series,  I'll explain some of the less obvious perfume notes that crop up in many indie perfumes. Keep in mind my descriptions and comparisons are based on my own experiences and your impressions may not be the same. Perfume notes are NOT ingredients. They can be natural essences, artificial isolated compounds that imitate the natural substance, blended accords, or a combination. Therefore, the note you like in one perfume may be unrecognizable in another. As with all sensory, subjective things, your mileage may vary.

Heliotrope is an odd duck, because while it's a flower, the scent is more like food. To be exact, heliotrope smells like fluffy, powdery almond mixed with syrupy cherries. There's almost a vanilla sweetness there at times. Imagine a flower that smells like cherry pie topped with almonds and marzipan. Hungry yet? Not all heliotrope notes smell like all of these things. Cherries and almonds are a classic scent combo because they share some scent characteristics (a certain sharp "high" fruity note is common to both) so in real life, a heliotrope bush may smell lighter, more like vanilla, more almondy, etc, depending. Heliotrope as a note has a very distinctive smell that does well in sweet, strong floral blends. It's can be adapted to suit aquatic or fresh/green formulations in small quantities.

Perfumes featuring heliotrope:

NAVA Ariadne: Definitely supposed to be a "soliflore" type of perfume highlighting the brazen and unusual heliotrope qualities. This smells like baking with almond extract and canned red cherries. Very sweet, a bit tart and red, and syrupy smooth.