Not drawn yet: a drawing of what it smells like.

Acetoin

Ingredients · Sweet · heart note

Acetoin

Say ituh-SEE-toh-in

Soft creamy butter and yogurt, milder than diacetyl.

What it is
A molecule made in a lab.
Where it comes from
produced by bacteria in butter and yogurt
When you smell it
Heart: the first hours.
What perfumers do with it
Gives gentle creamy-buttery roundness to milk, caramel and gourmand accords.
Worth knowing
Left in air it slowly oxidises into diacetyl, the sharper butter molecule.
Also called
3-Hydroxy-2-butanone; acetyl methyl carbinol

Not on the label of any of the 232 perfumes read so far.