Lily-of-the-valley

What it is

The flower yields no oil at all, so this note has only ever existed as a reconstruction. It is the classic example of a smell perfumery had to invent rather than extract.

What it smells like

Fresh, green and dewy, with a faint soapiness. It was everywhere in the 1980s and 1990s and now reads as slightly formal, and because it was always synthetic no two houses' versions agree on quite what it should be.

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.

Chanel (8), Calvin Klein (7), Givenchy (7), Ajmal (6), Giorgio Armani (6), Hermes (5).