Scent Word of the Week: Sillage
Words Related to Scent
Sillage: What Does it Mean in Perfumery?
The word sillage, is borrowed from the French language for perfumery use. Loosely translated it describes the wake left by ships. It is closely related to other scent words of perfume performance such as tenacity. Sillage measures how well a fragrance diffuses behind the wearer, or the trail left behind them.
Some real life examples include:
the smell of fresh baked bread in the air, a block from the bakery.
the smell of lavender in the bathroom from your grandmother’s soap.
the smell of “wet dog,” when your pooch has left the room (a familiar, if not always pleasant, aroma!).
Some fragrances have more sillage than others. Heavier fragrances tend to be associated with greater sillage but this is not always the case. You might have a lighter summer fragrance with a strong sillage, too. If someone remarks to you, “oh, what’s that fragrance you’re wearing?”, it’s likely that it has a strong sillage, as you’ve left a trail of scent behind you as you pass by.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at tenacity, volume, and impact in the scent word of the week to learn how the performance of a fragrance is evaluated.
I believe that my fragrance Audrey on Air has a lighter sillage than Brown-eyed Brooks for comparison.
What do you think of sillage in perfumery? And what did you learn from this article? Drop me your thoughts in the comments below.
“sillage, what remains when all else has left…”
Jean Mackin, American Author, The Beautiful American