How many notes does a good perfume have? The answer is disappointing
Eight. That is the median number of notes announced by the houses. Some claim twenty-three, others just one — and neither extreme guarantees anything about what you will smell.
Faced with two pages, one announcing six notes and the other eighteen, we spontaneously assume the second is “richer”. It is a reasonable intuition, and it is wrong.
We counted the notes of 762 pyramids published by the houses themselves (on their official shops), leaving aside the pages whose pyramid is taken from unofficial sources. Here is the actual distribution.
The curve
| Notes | Perfumes |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | 60 |
| 4 to 5 | 76 |
| 6 | 93 |
| 7 | 82 |
| 8 | 103 |
| 9 | 117 |
| 10 to 12 | 139 |
| 13 to 15 | 62 |
| 16 to 20 | 23 |
| 21 and more | 7 |
The median is 8 notes, the mean 8.4. A little over one perfume in two (52%) has between 6 and 9 notes — but the range is wide: 8% announce three notes or fewer, and 12% more than twelve.
Method. Figures established on 762 pyramids published by the houses, excluding pages taken from unofficial sources. A published pyramid is a communication document, not a formula: houses never disclose the real composition, which often has dozens of materials. What we measure here is therefore what brands choose to say — which remains interesting information in itself. These figures describe our catalogue, not world perfumery.
What this means
There is no imposed format: you find two-note pyramids just as readily as twenty-note ones. Nearly one perfume in three (30%) announces ten or more. The number of notes is a presentation choice, not a standard of the profession.
The minimalists: one note
Nine perfumes in the catalogue declare only a single note, including Mizensir’s Bois de Mysore and Ormonde Jayne’s Ambre Royal. Two cases must be distinguished here, and we must be honest about the limit of the data: some houses make simplicity a stance (Mizensir presents most of its perfumes in one or two notes), others simply do not publish their full pyramid. A short list is therefore not always a short composition.
For these perfumes, everything apparently rests on the quality of the material, since there is nothing to mask it — but only a test on skin can tell. Some can barely be smelled, others give a remarkable second-skin effect.
The profuse: more than twenty notes
At the other end, seven perfumes exceed twenty notes. Three Zoologist creations share the record at 23 notes — Chameleon, Moth, Civet — ahead of Argos SACRED FLAME (22) and Roja Parfums’s Scandal Pour Homme (21).
Zoologist is a revealing case: the house builds each of its perfumes as a narrative animal portrait, which takes many materials to carry the story. It is not one-upmanship, it is a format — like a sprawling novel next to a short story.
Why the number of notes predicts nothing
Three reasons, the third being the most important.
A pyramid does not state proportions. Two perfumes can list exactly the same seven notes and have nothing to do with each other in use. A jasmine at 5% and a jasmine at 40% are written the same and do not smell the same.
A pyramid does not state the quality of the materials. “Sandalwood” covers a Mysore sandalwood as readily as a synthetic substitute at a hundredth of the price. The word is the same on the page.
A pyramid is a sales argument. Nothing obliges a house to be exhaustive, or to stick to the materials that are really dominant. Some long lists mainly serve to impress; some short lists hide a complex formula.
That is why our pages also display the accords with their intensity: an accord at 80 out of 100 tells you far more than a ten-note list with no hierarchy.
How to read a pyramid usefully
Look at the base first. It is what you will wear the longest, and it determines longevity — see our analysis of pyramids, where the base materials (white musk, vanilla, sandalwood, amber) appear in nearly 90% of cases at the end of the pyramid.
Count the accords, not the notes. A perfume with three clearly defined accords is easier to read than one with six accords that cancel each other out.
Beware of both extremes for a first purchase. A one-note perfume can disappoint if it does not take on your skin; a twenty-note perfume can be unreadable. Between 6 and 9 notes you are in the most common zone — without that being in itself a guarantee of balance.
And remember that it does not replace testing. The pyramid tells you what a perfume is made of. It does not tell you what it is worth on you.
Explore the catalogue’s scent notes, or compare two pyramids side by side in the comparator.