Water Lily

Cool, clear and delicately floral, with a watery green breath and powdery transparency.

• Its largest relative, the giant water lily Victoria, blooms white on the first evening and smells of pineapple to lure beetles – on the second evening it opens pink. Its leaves grow up to around two metres across.

Water lily oil isn’t produced in any meaningful quantity, so perfumers build the scent as an accord: from lily-of-the-valley molecules such as hydroxycitronellal, combined with watery green notes.