A structured, open vocabulary for describing everything your nose can perceive.
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Overview: Read the short letter from our master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel.
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One‑pager:
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Data:
Dear Colleagues, Perfumers, Olfactory Scientists, Fragrance‑Language Experts, and other Enthusiasts,
Osmo has created a scent taxonomy to describe all possible scents—from perfumery to food to the environment.
Osmo's scientific and artistic teams leveraged decades of cross‑industry knowledge—including flavor & fragrance literature, medical texts, food science, and academic olfaction research. We then sharpened and organized this knowledge into a taxonomy covering all possible scents.
The taxonomy includes 11 Grand Families, 64 Subfamilies, and ≈150 additional descriptors. These elements combine to describe nearly any smell in existence. To learn more about the taxonomy, please read this letter from our master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel.
Share your feedback! Can you think of a smell not covered? Or smells that don’t belong together? Your suggestions will help refine this system, which is used internally at Osmo and offered openly for research and education. The most effective way to provide feedback is by opening an issue.
If publishing using this work, please cite as (bibtex format):
@misc{osmo_scent_taxonomy_2025,
title = {The Osmo Scent Taxonomy},
author = {Osmo Labs, PBC},
howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/osmoai/taxonomy}},
year = {2025},
version = {1.1},
}