Saffron

What it is

Stigmas hand picked from crocus flowers, around 150,000 flowers per kilo, making it the most expensive spice by weight. Perfumery mostly uses safranal and safraleine rather than the spice itself.

What it smells like

Warm and leathery with a dry medicinal bite and a faint rubberiness. It pairs with oud so consistently that the two have become a house style of their own, and on its own it reads as more bitter than the word saffron suggests.

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.

Rasasi (11), Armaf (10), Byredo (9), Mancera (9), Xerjoff (7), Al Haramain (6).