Random Scent Generator: Perfume and Candle Notes With a Fact

One press gives scent notes, each with where the smell comes from and whether it sits at the top, heart or base of a blend.

Random Scent Generator: Perfume and Candle Notes With a Fact

  1. ElemiLemony, peppery resin from Canarium trees of the Philippines. Top note.Top
  2. Orange blossomBitter orange flowers taken as an absolute; warmer and sweeter than neroli. Heart note.Heart
  3. VanillaCured seed pods of a climbing orchid; vanillin is the main smell molecule. Base note.Base
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Random Scent Generator: Perfume and Candle Notes With a Fact: how it works

A blend that lasts needs a top, a heart and a base note, and Blend of three deals one of each. The list holds 120 scent notes in 8 families, from bergamot and rose to oud and petrichor. 37 are accords or lab-made, and the card says so.

Turn a draw into a candle or perfume blend

The page opens on Blend of three: one top, one heart and one base note, each with its badge. Lock the ones you like and press again for the rest. Only Fresh and green, Fruity, Woody and Earthy and resin hold all three levels, so leave the family on All for most blends. Test on paper strips before you pour. The draw names a note, not a product, so read the supplier's safety sheet for any oil that goes in wax or on skin.

Why 37 notes are accords or lab-made

Apples, strawberries and cherries rarely give an extract that smells like the fruit, and lily of the valley gives none at all. Perfumers rebuild them from single molecules: gamma-decalactone for peach and calone for sea air. Amber is not the fossil stone but an accord built mainly on labdanum. Rain on dry ground is geosmin, which a nose picks up at 0.4 parts per billion.

Tips

  • Writers: draw one note for each place in your story and one for each main character.
  • Citronella oil is used as an insect repellent, so save it for patio candles.
  • Nose training: tap Spicy, draw a note, then find it in the kitchen. Cinnamon, clove and ginger are easy first finds.

Questions and answers

How are the 120 notes split by family and level?

There are 22 floral, 12 citrus, 14 fruity, 19 fresh and green, 14 woody, 14 spicy, 14 gourmand and 20 earthy and resin. By level there are 42 top, 44 heart and 34 base notes. Every floral note here is a heart note, and every citrus note is a top note.

What do top, heart and base mean?

They are the order in which a blend evaporates. Top notes are light molecules that you smell at once and lose first, such as citrus and ginger. Heart notes, such as lavender and rose, show as the top fades. Base notes arrive last, and some musks can still be smelled a day later. Tap a level to draw from it alone.

Why does this random scent generator have no rum, tobacco or cannabis note?

All three are real perfume notes and appear in trade glossaries. They are left out on purpose, so the list suits a classroom or a family craft table. Nothing else was removed for that reason.

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All 120 scent notes

Floral 22

  • Carnation Frilly flower with a clove-like spice, thanks to the eugenol in its scent. Heart note.
  • Chamomile Daisy-like flower with an apple-like, hay-sweet smell. Heart note.
  • Cherry blossom A soft, airy spring accord blended by perfumers; most real blossom is faint. Heart note.
  • Frangipani Also called plumeria, the flower threaded into Hawaiian leis; creamy and peachy. Heart note.
  • Gardenia Creamy white flower, close to jasmine and tuberose in style. Heart note.
  • Geranium Distilled from the leaves of scented pelargoniums, not the flowers; rosy and minty. Heart note.
  • Heliotrope Purple flower that smells of almond and vanilla; gardeners call it cherry pie plant. Heart note.
  • Honeysuckle Sweet, nectar-like climber. Linalool and jasmone are both found in its scent. Heart note.
  • Iris Also called orris. Made from iris roots dried for up to five years, not from the flower. Heart note.
  • Jasmine Small white flowers, usually extracted with solvents into a thick absolute. Heart note.
  • Lavender Steam-distilled purple flower spikes, rich in linalool. A textbook middle note. Heart note.
  • Lilac Spring shrub blossom. The molecule terpineol carries much of the lilac smell. Heart note.
  • Lily of the valley The bell flowers give no extract at all, so every version is built from lab molecules. Heart note.
  • Mimosa Fluffy yellow wattle blossom; powdery, honeyed and a little green. Heart note.
  • Neroli Steam-distilled from the blossom of the bitter orange tree; green and honeyed. Heart note.
  • Orange blossom Bitter orange flowers taken as an absolute; warmer and sweeter than neroli. Heart note.
  • Osmanthus Tiny East Asian blossom with an apricot-like smell, also used to scent tea. Heart note.
  • Peony A fresh, rosy flower note that perfumers build as an accord. Heart note.
  • Rose Steam-distilled from rose petals. Geraniol is one of the molecules behind the smell. Heart note.
  • Tuberose Creamy, heady white flower that perfumers extract with solvents. Heart note.
  • Violet Sweet and powdery. The smell comes from ionones, named after the Greek word for violet. Heart note.
  • Ylang-ylang Yellow flowers of a tropical tree; sweet, creamy and a little like banana. Heart note.

Citrus 12

  • Bergamot Peel oil of a sour citrus grown on the coast of Calabria; it also flavors Earl Grey tea. Top note.
  • Citronella Oil from a relative of lemongrass, used as an insect repellent in outdoor candles. Top note.
  • Grapefruit About 90% limonene. Often lab-made now, as sulfur in the natural oil breaks down badly. Top note.
  • Lemon Usually cold-pressed from the peel, so it smells like the fruit itself. Top note.
  • Lemon verbena Shrub whose rough leaves smell sharply of lemon when rubbed. Top note.
  • Lemongrass A very fragrant grass from India, rich in citral, the lemon-smelling molecule. Top note.
  • Lime Sharper and greener than lemon, from the rind of the fruit. Top note.
  • Litsea cubeba Also called may chang; the small fruits of an Asian tree with a lemon-like smell. Top note.
  • Mandarin Soft, sweet peel oil, the gentlest of the citrus family. Top note.
  • Petitgrain Distilled from the leaves of the orange tree, not the fruit; green and woody. Top note.
  • Sweet orange Cold-pressed peel oil that is about 90% limonene. Top note.
  • Yuzu Tart East Asian citrus, like grapefruit with mandarin. Japan floats it in solstice baths. Top note.

Fruity 14

  • Apple Apples rarely give a true-smelling extract, so this crisp note is lab-made. Top note.
  • Banana Isoamyl acetate gives the banana smell, and the banana plant makes it too. Top note.
  • Blackcurrant Also called cassis. One of the few fruit notes taken from the real plant. Top note.
  • Cherry Built around benzaldehyde, the molecule that also gives bitter almond its smell. Heart note.
  • Coconut Made with creamy lactones; one of them is the classic smell of suntan lotion. Base note.
  • Fig Fig scents copy the whole tree: green leaf, milky sap and sweet fruit. Heart note.
  • Grape Methyl anthranilate, found in grapes, gives the grape-candy smell. Top note.
  • Mango Lush tropical note. Ocimene, a molecule found in mango, smells fruity and floral. Top note.
  • Melon Watery and sweet. The lab molecule calone is nicknamed watermelon ketone. Top note.
  • Peach Built from lactones; gamma-decalactone smells intensely of peach. Heart note.
  • Pear Juicy note made with fruit esters; isoamyl acetate smells of pear and banana. Top note.
  • Pineapple Bright tropical note made with esters such as ethyl butyrate, found in the real fruit. Top note.
  • Raspberry Raspberry ketone is the main smell molecule; a kilo of berries holds only 1 to 4 mg. Heart note.
  • Strawberry Lab-made, as the fruit gives no true extract. Furaneol is one strawberry-smelling molecule. Heart note.

Fresh and green 16

  • Aldehydes Lab-made molecules that smell fizzy, soapy and waxy; they lift a floral blend. Top note.
  • Basil Green, peppery herb with a trace of anise, from its linalool and anethole. Top note.
  • Clary sage Tea-like, hay-sweet herb. Its sclareol is the starting point for lab-made ambroxide. Heart note.
  • Clean cotton The fresh-laundry smell is mostly lab-made white musk, the kind added to detergent. Base note.
  • Cut grass The mown-lawn smell is cis-3-hexenol, known as leaf alcohol, which most plants make. Top note.
  • Eucalyptus Leaf oil of the gum tree; the molecule eucalyptol gives the sharp, clearing smell. Top note.
  • Galbanum Bitter, intensely green gum from a wild relative of fennel. Top note.
  • Green tea A light, leafy, slightly bitter accord that makes a blend feel calm and clean. Heart note.
  • Juniper berry Piney and crisp. The berries are really the small, fleshy cones of the juniper bush. Top note.
  • Peppermint Leaf oil rich in menthol, the molecule that makes skin feel cold. Top note.
  • Rosemary Piney, camphor-sharp Mediterranean herb, steam-distilled. Top note.
  • Sea breeze Salty, airy accord made possible by calone, a molecule Pfizer found in 1966. Top note.
  • Sea salt Pure salt has no smell, so this is an accord of marine and mineral notes. Top note.
  • Spearmint Its molecule carvone has a mirror-image twin that smells of caraway instead. Top note.
  • Tomato leaf The sharp green smell of a brushed tomato vine, valued by perfumers for its greenness. Top note.
  • Wintergreen Methyl salicylate gives its minty, root-beer smell. Top note.

Woody 14

  • Birch tar Made by heating birch until it chars; smoky and leathery. Base note.
  • Cedarwood Dry and clean, the smell of pencil shavings. Base note.
  • Driftwood An accord, not an oil: dry woods with salt and sea air. Base note.
  • Fir balsam Sweet, jammy needle smell of the balsam fir, a classic Christmas tree. Heart note.
  • Guaiac wood Steam-distilled from wood and sawdust; soft and rosy, like tea roses or violets. Base note.
  • Hinoki Lemon-scented Japanese cypress, the timber of temples, shrines and bath tubs. Base note.
  • Oakmoss A lichen that grows on oak trees; inky, damp and forest-like. Base note.
  • Oud Forms only when a mould infects Aquilaria trees, which make dark resin to fight it. Base note.
  • Palo santo Spanish for holy wood. Sticks of this South American tree are burned as incense. Base note.
  • Pine Sharp, clean smell of needles and resin; pine oil also goes into cleaners. Top note.
  • Rosewood Rosy wood oil rich in linalool. The Amazon tree is endangered, so trade is controlled. Heart note.
  • Sandalwood Creamy, milky oil distilled from the heartwood and used mainly for fragrance. Base note.
  • Vetiver Thick amber oil from the roots of a tropical grass; it fixes lighter notes in place. Base note.
  • Wood smoke Smoky notes often come from cade oil, made by charring juniper wood. Base note.

Spicy 14

  • Allspice One dried berry that smells of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg at once. Heart note.
  • Anise Small seed with a rich licorice smell, also from anethole. Top note.
  • Black pepper Distilled from the dried berries; dry and bright, with none of the heat. Top note.
  • Cardamom Seeds of a ginger-family plant; cool, lemony and a little like eucalyptus. Top note.
  • Cinnamon Bark spice. Its cinnamaldehyde was isolated from cinnamon oil in 1834. Heart note.
  • Clove Dried, unopened flower buds. Eugenol gives the warm, medicinal smell. Heart note.
  • Coriander seed The seeds smell citrusy and sweet, nothing like the leaves, and are rich in linalool. Top note.
  • Cumin Warm and sharp, from cuminaldehyde; perfumers use it in tiny doses. Heart note.
  • Ginger Fresh, lemony and warm, distilled from the rhizome. A common top note. Top note.
  • Nutmeg Seed of a tropical tree. Mace, a separate spice, is the red net wrapped around it. Heart note.
  • Pink pepper Rosy berries of the Peruvian pepper tree, a cashew relative and not a true pepper. Top note.
  • Pumpkin spice A blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove; pumpkin itself adds little smell. Heart note.
  • Saffron Dried red threads from a crocus flower; leathery, honeyed and bitter. Heart note.
  • Star anise Star-shaped fruit of an evergreen tree; anethole gives the licorice smell. Top note.

Gourmand 13

  • Almond The marzipan smell is benzaldehyde, a molecule found in bitter almonds. Heart note.
  • Caramel Burnt-sugar note. Ethyl maltol, a lab molecule, smells of caramelized sugar. Base note.
  • Cocoa Extract of roasted cocoa beans; dry, dusty and bitter rather than sweet. Base note.
  • Coffee Extract of roasted beans; bitter and toasty, good for cutting through sweetness. Heart note.
  • Fresh bread One molecule, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, smells of warm crust and of jasmine rice. Heart note.
  • Honey Honey can be solvent-extracted into an absolute; warm, thick and sweet. Base note.
  • Licorice Sweet root. Its Latin name, Glycyrrhiza, comes from the Greek for sweet root. Heart note.
  • Maple syrup Sotolon, the molecule behind it, also smells of fenugreek and curry. Base note.
  • Milk Creamy notes come from lactones, the same family that gives peach and coconut. Base note.
  • Peru balsam Sweet tree balsam used as a cheaper stand-in for vanilla in perfumes and soaps. Base note.
  • Popcorn A close cousin of the fresh-bread molecule gives popcorn and tortillas their toasty smell. Heart note.
  • Tonka bean Black, wrinkled seed from South America, rich in vanilla-like coumarin. Base note.
  • Vanilla Cured seed pods of a climbing orchid; vanillin is the main smell molecule. Base note.

Earthy and resin 15

  • Amber Not the fossil stone: a warm, sweet accord built mainly on labdanum. Base note.
  • Ambergris Waxy lumps that begin inside sperm whales; lab-made ambroxide now stands in for it. Base note.
  • Beeswax A solid absolute taken from honeycomb with alcohol; smells honeyed and warm. Base note.
  • Benzoin Vanilla-sweet resin from the bark of Styrax trees in Sumatra and mainland Southeast Asia. Base note.
  • Dragon's blood Bright red resin from dragon trees and rattan palms, burned as incense since ancient times. Base note.
  • Elemi Lemony, peppery resin from Canarium trees of the Philippines. Top note.
  • Frankincense Boswellia trees are cut and the sap hardens into tears; also called olibanum. Base note.
  • Hay Sweet dried-grass absolute, valued for its warm green smell. Base note.
  • Labdanum Sticky rockrose resin, once combed from the beards of goats that grazed the shrubs. Base note.
  • Leather No oil comes from leather; the note is built from smoky birch tar and labdanum. Base note.
  • Mushroom Damp and earthy. Its molecule, 1-octen-3-ol, was first found in matsutake mushrooms. Heart note.
  • Musk Once taken from the musk deer; now mostly replaced by lab-made white musk. Base note.
  • Myrrh Tree resin with a warm, slightly musty smell, used in incense since ancient times. Base note.
  • Patchouli Leaves of a bushy mint relative; dark, damp and earthy. A very common perfume material. Base note.
  • Petrichor Rain on dry ground, named in 1964. Noses catch its geosmin at 0.4 parts per billion. Base note.

How this list was compiled: Note names and families are our own selection, cross-checked against the Perfume Society ingredient glossary (https://perfumesociety.org/discover-perfume/an-introduction/ingredients/). Facts were checked on 2026-09-18 against Wikipedia: plant, animal, lichen and lab sources of perfume materials, fruit notes that cannot be extracted, calone, white musk and beeswax absolute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume); smell molecules and where they occur, such as geraniol, linalool, terpineol, carvone, isoamyl acetate, gamma-decalactone, ethyl maltol, sotolon and 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_compound); essential oils, plant parts and limonene shares (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_essential_oils); and the pages for Lily of the valley, Orris root, Agarwood, Coumarin, Tonka bean, Petrichor, Labdanum, Bergamot orange, Ionone, Calone, Ambroxide, Raspberry ketone, Oil of guaiac, Pink peppercorn, 1-Octen-3-ol, Yuzu, Chamaecyparis obtusa, Juniperus oxycedrus (cade oil), cis-3-Hexen-1-ol, Aniba rosaeodora, Dragon's blood, Frankincense and Benzoin (resin), each at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ plus the page name. Top, heart and base follow the usual evaporation order set out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_(perfumery): citrus, herbs and light fruits first, flowers and spices in the middle, woods, resins, musks and sweet notes last. They are conventions, and a perfumer may place a material elsewhere. Notes based on alcohol, tobacco or cannabis are left out on purpose. The 1834 isolation of cinnamaldehyde from cinnamon oil, by Dumas and Péligot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamaldehyde, checked 2026-09-19 (the card no longer calls it the first smell molecule purified, which no source supports). The Level filter and the Blend of three button read x.position. Descriptions are in our own words. Licence: own work