Base Notes

Base notes are the slow-evaporating, heavy-molecular-weight materials that anchor a fragrance. They emerge 2+ hours into wear and can persist 8+ hours on skin and even longer on clothes. Common base notes: sandalwood, cedar, vetiver, oakmoss, musk (white musk, ambrette, ambroxan), patchouli, vanilla, tonka bean, labdanum, ambergris, and oud. Because they last longest, base notes drive what a fragrance smells like "on you" — not what it smells like in the first 10 minutes off the cap. When community reviewers say they love a fragrance's dry-down, they're talking about the base.