Top note · Floral

Lavender

Lavandula angustifolia

Lavender is herbal, floral and fresh, with soft camphor and hay-like facets. Discover the aromatic heart of fougères and modern colognes.

What does lavender smell like in perfume?

Lavender smells herbal, floral and fresh, with a soft, hay-like sweetness. It can feel crisp and aromatic or warm and soft, depending on what it is paired with.

What Is Lavender?

Fine lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, also called true or English lavender, is a small shrub of the mint family. Its oil is steam-distilled from the flowering spikes.

Lavender Scent Profile

Here is how strongly each facet of lavender comes through, from our own smelling-strip notes.

How Perfumers Use Lavender

Lavender is the heart of the fougère family and a key cologne ingredient. In modern perfumery it is also paired with coffee, vanilla and tonka for a warm, gourmand twist: its sweet, linalool-rich side softens their richness and adds a fresh, aromatic lift.

Growing and harvesting lavender

Fine lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, is grown in Provence, Bulgaria and England. It is harvested in July, when about half the flowers on each spike are open, then steam-distilled, often within a day. It takes a large field of flowers to fill a small still with oil. Lavender grown high in the hills of Provence is softer and sweeter than lowland lavender.

The molecules behind lavender’s scent

Linalool and linalyl acetate make up much of lavender oil. Linalool smells soft and floral; linalyl acetate is fresh, fruity and slightly sweet. A little camphor and 1,8-cineole give the sharper, herbal edge.

Natural or synthetic lavender?

Many cheaper “lavender” notes use lavandin, a hardier hybrid with more camphor, or rebuild the scent from synthetic linalool and linalyl acetate. Fine lavender smells softer, sweeter and more floral, with a hay-like warmth in the drydown.

Lavender in history and tradition

Lavender has scented British linen for centuries, tucked into drawers and cupboards in muslin bags. Mitcham in Surrey was once famous for its lavender fields, and Norfolk still is. The name is often traced to the Latin lavare, to wash, as lavender was used to scent washing water. In perfumery, lavender is the backbone of the fougère: Houbigant’s Fougère Royale of 1882 combined it with coumarin and oakmoss and gave the family its name.

How to smell lavender yourself

Rub a lavender flower spike between your fingers. If you can, compare English lavender with the taller, bushier lavandin often planted in gardens and car parks: lavandin is sharper and more camphorous, fine lavender rounder and sweeter.

Smell Lavender in Prosody London Perfumes

For lavender at its most expressive, try Mocha Muscari. Lavender lifts coffee and coconut in the opening, giving a gourmand a fresh, aromatic edge. You will also find lavender in Carissis.

What Blends Well With Lavender?

Questions About Lavender

Explore all of our natural perfume ingredients.