Lavender

What it is

Distilled from the flowering tops, mostly from Provence and Bulgaria. True lavender and lavandin are different plants, and lavandin is cheaper, higher yielding and sharper.

What it smells like

Clean and herbal with a cooling top and a faint sweetness under it. What it means depends on where you grew up: a linen cupboard in Britain, a men's fragrance in France, and that split accounts for most disagreements about it.

Where it sits

Which layer of the pyramid it is listed in, across every fragrance here that carries it. A base note is one you smell for hours; a top note is usually gone within the first.

What it turns up with

How much more often than the catalogue average. 1.0x would be chance, so these are the things that genuinely travel with it rather than the things that are simply common.

When it is worn

Against the average fragrance here. The line marks that average, so a bar past it means this is worn in that season or setting more than most.

Houses that use it most

Counted across the fragrances here, which reflects what we cover as much as what a house makes.

Armaf (19), Jean Paul Gaultier (13), Yves Saint Laurent (13), Lattafa (11), Paco Rabanne (11), Giorgio Armani (9).