Base Notes
Base notes are the bottom tier of the fragrance pyramid — heavy, slow-evaporating woods, resins, musks, amber and vanilla that surface last and last longest.
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In perfumery, base notes are the bottom tier of the fragrance pyramid — the heaviest, slowest-evaporating materials in a composition, and the part you smell hours after the spray, once the top and heart have faded. (Run together as one word, "Basenotes" is also the name of the long-running fragrance forum; this page is about the perfume term.) The base is the foundation the rest of the scent is built on, and the layer that decides how a fragrance is remembered: it moves slowly enough to still be on your skin at the end of the day. The full top–heart–base ladder is broken out below.
Why these materials last is physics, not magic. Base notes are large, heavy molecules with low volatility, so they evaporate far more slowly than the light citrus and herbs of the opening. The numbers bear it out: sandalwood's santalols and patchouli's patchoulol both sit around 220 atomic mass units, against roughly 154 for linalool, a typical top-note material. The heavier the molecule, the slower it leaves the skin — which is why a base note can read for eight, twelve, sometimes twenty-four hours while the top is gone in half an hour. Typical base materials are the dense ones: sandalwood, cedar, vetiver and patchouli on the woody side; labdanum, benzoin and other resins; tonka and vanilla for sweetness; musks and amber accords for warmth; oakmoss for the dry, earthy floor of a chypre.
The base does two jobs at once. It is the lasting impression — the dry-down, the smell that's left when everything lighter has burned off. It also acts as a fixative: heavy base materials slow the evaporation of the brighter notes above them, holding the whole composition together for longer than the top and heart would manage alone. A common mistake is to treat the base as the "real" smell that arrives late — it was on your skin from the first spray. It simply waits for the lighter material to clear before it takes over.
- Base notes
- The bottom tier of the fragrance pyramid: the heaviest, least volatile materials in a composition — woods, resins, musks, amber, vanilla, oakmoss — that surface last and last longest. They give a fragrance its depth and staying power, often holding for 8-12 hours or more depending on concentration and skin.
- Top notes
- The opening impression — light, volatile materials (citrus, aromatic herbs, light fruits) you smell immediately and that fade fastest, usually within 15-30 minutes. They set the first impression, then give way to the heart.
- Heart notes
- The core of the composition, perceived once the top notes evaporate — usually a floral-and-spice blend that defines a fragrance's main character. Also called middle notes. Holds for roughly 2-6 hours before the base dominates.
- Fragrance pyramid
- The standard three-tier diagram (top / heart / base) used to describe how a scent unfolds. It charts the order in which materials dominate over time as they evaporate at different rates — not the order in which they physically appear. All three tiers are on the skin from the first spray.
- Dry-down
- The final stage of a fragrance, once the heart has receded and the base leads. In practice the dry-down is what you smell from the base notes after several hours of wear.
- Fixative
- A material — often a base note such as a musk, resin, or oakmoss — that slows the evaporation of the lighter notes above it, extending how long the whole composition lasts. The base tier does most of a fragrance's fixing work.