Ingredients · Sweet · dry-down

Sotolon

Say itSOH-tuh-lon

Maple syrup and burnt sugar when faint; curry and fenugreek when strong.

What it is

A molecule made in a lab.

Where it comes from

nature-identical, key aroma of fenugreek and lovage

When you smell it

Dry-down: hours later.

What perfumers do with it

Traces add maple, caramel and immortelle-like warmth; overdosed it smells of curry.

Worth knowing

Blamed for the mysterious maple-syrup smell drifting over Manhattan since 2005, traced to a New Jersey fenugreek processor.

Also called

Sotolone; 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethylfuran-2(5H)-one; fenugreek lactone