What Is ScentTrek? How Perfumers Capture a Living Plant's Scent

ScentTrek is Givaudan’s proprietary approach to researching natural scents using headspace sampling. It helps perfumers study the scent around a flower or other source and create a reconstruction for use in fragrance. On a note list, the name describes how a scent was researched; it is not an essential oil or a concentration label.

How does headspace sampling work?

Headspace is the air around a source containing its volatile scent compounds. In a flower-sampling example from Givaudan’s 2000 annual report, a glass vessel encloses a living orchid and the scented air is collected for laboratory analysis without harvesting the flower.

Researchers then study the sample to help identify its scent components. A perfumer can use that information as a starting point for a reconstructed accord. Givaudan’s account of Roman Kaiser’s natural-scent research describes both analytical study and reconstructions using individual synthetic scent materials.

Is it the same as extracting an oil?

Headspace sampling collects information about the scent in the air. Extraction produces a material from the source itself. A headspace-inspired accord can therefore evoke a flower without being an extract of that flower.

Different proprietary names also refer to different processes. For example, MANE describes Jungle Essence as supercritical-fluid extraction, including an extract made from dried tea leaves. It should not be treated as another name for Givaudan’s headspace method.

Where does ScentTrek appear in perfume?

Tom Ford lists silver juniper and pinyon wood ScentTrek in Ombré Leather Reserve. The brand connects its silver juniper character with headspace research in the Chisos Mountains. Our Reserve article explains the composition and wearer comparisons with the original EDP.

The method predates that launch. Givaudan’s 2006 annual report discusses ScentTrek expeditions and says reconstructions were used in fragrances including the original Black Orchid.

How should it affect a buying decision?

Use the note’s scent direction as your starting point: juniper suggests a different comparison from a floral accord, even when both come from headspace research. Sample the fragrance to decide whether you enjoy the finished composition and its development. The technology name explains part of the creative process; your preference for the scent determines whether you want to wear it.

The ScentTrek glossary entry offers a shorter definition, and aromachemical explains another term used when discussing fragrance materials.