Blueberry is a soft, jammy berry note with a gentle sweetness and a slightly powdery, violet-like character, found in fruity-floral, gourmand and playful fresh perfumes. It is an accord rather than an extract, composed by the perfumer to suggest ripe blueberries, blueberry muffins or bilberry jam.

What does Blueberry smell like?

Real blueberries have a subtle aroma, so perfumers often amplify it. The result smells of soft blue-purple fruit, mildly tart and jammy, with a powdery, violet nuance and sometimes a bakery warmth. It is less acidic than blackberry and less pungent than blackcurrant, sitting on the gentle, rounded end of the berry spectrum. Wild bilberries, the European cousin, are more intense and slightly more resinous.

How perfumers create Blueberry

The accord typically combines fruity esters for juiciness, ionones and violet-leaf notes for the powdery blue facet, raspberry ketone for berry character and a little lactone or vanillin for jammy softness. Green notes can add a fresh-picked feeling, while cake-like gourmand materials turn it into blueberry muffin.

• Also known as: Bilberry (for the European wild species), myrtille
• Fragrance family: Fruity
• Type: Accord (created by the perfumer)
• How it's obtained: Built from esters, ionones and berry-type synthetics
• Key aroma molecules: Fruity esters, ionones, raspberry ketone

Blueberry in perfume history

Blueberry has little specific history in fine fragrance. It emerged as a named note during the fruity-floral boom of the 1990s and 2000s, when brands sought novelty fruits to set their launches apart, and it has been popular in body mists and youthful scents ever since.

Blueberry in modern perfumery

Today blueberry appears mainly as an accent: a fresh, cool fruit in the top of fruity-florals, or a jammy element in gourmands. Some niche perfumers use it in more unusual pairings with tea, wood or incense to exploit its quiet, slightly mysterious colour.

How Blueberry wears and what it pairs with

Blueberry is mostly a top note, giving a soft, juicy opening that melts into the heart. It pairs well with violet, iris, jasmine, blackcurrant, vanilla, musk, tea and sandalwood.