Scent Word of the Week: Powdery

Words Related to Scent

Powdery: What Does it Mean?

Powdery is an adjective which is first thought to have gained its association with cosmetics via the French queen Catherine de Medici (1519-1585). Like many other aromatic substances that fascinated the French queen throughout her life, she began to add orris powder to her cosmetics (1). Orris root (extracted from the iris flower) to this day is thought of a “powdery” aroma, perhaps in recognition from its beginnings in Catherine de Medici’s cosmetic powder.

Often, we think of a “powdery” aroma like those associated with cosmetics and baby powder but in perfumery, “powdery” is a word which is used to describe a variety of scents which might include rose, violet, iris, mimosa, and vanilla, as well as musky aromas.

Above is an example of how to use the adjective powdery in a sentence. Now that you know what it means you can add this scent word of the week to your fragrance vocabulary!

Use this word as a scent prompt and see what other examples you can come up with. Or use the following quote and think about how to incorporate the word powdery into a possible sentence which describes the scent of this description.

Reference:

(1) Parfumerie Naseen, What Makes a Fragrance Powdery?

“Well. Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat's ears in the sun, indigo shadow…”

Margaret Atwood, Canadian Poet and Novelist