Niklaus Mettler

The Sweet Scents of Ecstasy

Heliotropine, the diffusing scent in Brabant (NL)

The region of Brabant in The Netherlands is not only known for its extensive farming industry, but also for the production of designer drugs. ‘Snoepjes’ is the local nickname for the pills that are made of MDMA.  

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Ecstasy - commercial name of MDMA

The substance is known in a wide range of music/club cultures and is cooked up with not more than 4 synthetic ingredients. One of those is called Heliotropine, a material that is also used in perfumes and food flavourings.

From time to time, the police manages to root out some of these illegal laboratories that are often hidden in empty farms or garages. It is said that these production plants attract attention because of a #powdery #sweet #vanilla #cherry #almond odour that escapes from these hidden labs. The #powdery #sweet scent of the Heliotropine is an organic compound that occurs for example in dill, vanilla, violet flowers and black pepper. 

At the Open Aroma Lab we stock a substitute called Heliotropex N 0512 . The synthetic material is produced by IFF perfume company. It has a pleasant smell and is very interesting in its floral accords, oriental perfumes, chypre, and fougere compositions.

Join our next Open Aroma Lab to learn more. Every Thursday and Saturday.

#heliotropine #piperonal #xtc #mdma #perfumes