Tracing the origin of the fruit aromas in a popular perfume could lead to almost anywhere in the world; from a sun-drenched Sicilian lemon valley to a Brazilian blood orange plantation, or a Chinese yuzu field.
Traditionally essential oil suppliers have scoured the globe for the finest fruits and, after harvest, processed the produce to extract and refine the oil from its peel. The oil is then supplied to fragrance companies that hold the licence to manufacture scents on behalf of fashion brands.
However, new technology is helping to change the way the perfume industry uses fruit within its products.
A new fragrance starts with a perfumer such as Azzi Glasser, whose job it is to interpret a client’s brief into a perfume with her vast knowledge of available fruit scents.
“I always visualise the end smell first and then re-create it into a perfect symphony,” she says.
In addition to essential oils, Glasser occasionally also uses fruit extracts for bodycare products - not so much for their fragrant qualities as for their vitamins, minerals and nutrients. “For example, I used passion fruit extract in the Agent Provocateur body lotion because it’s hydrating and went well with the concept of sensuality.” she explains.
In terms of product development, Glasser thinks we can expect even more fruity scents in the future, as these appeal to the younger market. “They’re lighter, sweeter and fresher and younger consumers generally relate to them more than heavy florals, spices or woods. CK One for instance was based on bergamot and targeted to the younger consumer. The older market generally prefers more sophisticated notes that have much more longevity and depth.”
The fragrance industry is arguably one of the most exciting sectors a fruit grower could supply, thinks Glasser. “It’s probably one of the most innovative industries, and certainly one of the most luxurious.”
Up-and-coming fruit scents, according to Glasser, include yuzu, a fruit grown in Asia which looks a bit like a bergamot; nashi pear, which features in the new Issey Miyake fragrance; and maracuya, a vine species of passion flower native to Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina. “It’s got a creamy exotic smell; a bit like a peach or apricot with a hint of mango. It’s a little bit more exotic and has more interesting connotations than apples or lemons, which have been done.”
So which are the most expensive fruits to source? In the citrus family it’s cold-pressed Sicilian lemon oil and bergamot, or really good quality mandarin oil. Otherwise citrus fruits are generally the least expensive out of all the natural ingredients, which apart from fruit also include flowers, wood and spices. “Because citrus is produced in higher quantities it brings the price down, but it has still gone up in the last 10 years,” says Glasser.
French or Moroccan neroli is also expensive, costing up to £2,500 per kilo, as is cassis, fig leaf, passion fruit and raspberry extracts. The latter is an increasingly popular ingredient.
“For a while now, red fruits have been popular in fragrances, they seem to express the idea of youth,” says perfumer Thierry Wasser, who creates many of the best-selling fragrances at Guerlain. “Fruit notes can be very comforting and often evoke childhood memories.”
It takes Wasser approximately a year to develop a new scent and he says he has always loved creating fruity fragrances. “The range of natural fruit is amazingly rich. Top of the list you find mandarin, grapefruit, lemon or blackcurrant. But the perfumer can also invent tasty notes such as strawberry, peach or apple. Here’s a secret; I have discovered that mixing raspberry and almond makes a delicious black cherry note.”
Although perfumers have long created synthetic scents, in recent years the technology has progressed to ‘freeze-frame’, a method that involves freezing fruit in liquid nitrogen and allows perfumers to capture molecules of fresh fruit and reproduce the smell.
Dr Robin Clery, natural products research manager at flavour and fragrance research giant Givaudan, calls it the most important technical breakthrough in perfume creation.
“Previously the perfumers had to rely on their experience in order to know how to recreate the odour of a fruit,” he says. “Now we can capture the volatile molecules of the fruit, analyse them and make a reconstruction that smells exactly like the fruit itself. For perfumers, that’s a big step forward.”
That’s not to say that essential oils are on the way out - on the contrary, Givaudan is always evaluating new ingredients. The company doesn’t do any primary growing, but works closely with the world’s leading essential oil producers. “There are constantly new qualities of citrus oils being offered and it’s always interesting to smell and evaluate oils from unusual citrus varieties.”
Most of the citrus oils he uses come from California, Italy, or Florida, where there is a big processing plant. There, the oils are first distilled from the fruit and then reprocessed to improve their quality. “Citrus is a bit special, because the oil is a by-product from juice production. With lime for instance, the fruit is grown just for its oil, whereas oranges are grown for their juice and it’s the oil that is a by-product.”
Interestingly, while orange and mandarin oil are bought in large quantities, kumquat is not on the list of fruit oils Givaudan buys. “They have very thin peel with little oil in it, but it’s a niche product and a specialist perfumery might be able to buy small quantities,” says Clery. “We buy very large quantities of citrus oils in a year but a niche perfumery will buy smaller quantities of things like Kaffia lime oil, which is more available than kumquat but still not something we buy a lot of.”
The same applies to flavour extracts, although Givaudan uses these to much greater extent in its flavour department. “A perfumer might use flavour extracts in a fragrance but this is rare. It might be that a passion fruit or raspberry extract could be used in a perfume but it’s more likely to be a reconstruction,” he reveals.
Clery says that if the industry succeeds in developing completely water-based fragrances in the future, it will bring the worlds of growing and perfumery even closer together. “If someone developed a way to deliver a fine fragrance without the need for alcohol it would allow us to use a lot of new ingredients, such as fruit extracts that are currently only really suitable for flavours.” -
ESSENTIAL OIL SUPPLIERS
Citrus & Allied Essences is a supplier of essential oils, oleoresins, aromatic chemicals and specialty flavour ingredients, used by major flavour and fragrance houses like Givaudan. A global organisation, Citrus & Allied has a network of representatives in western Europe, South America and the Far East.
Treatt is another world-leading independent ingredients supplier to the flavour and fragrance industries. The company manufactures and supplies a vast range of products, from essential oils and natural fractions to specialty aroma chemicals, including nitrogen and sulphur.
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