Cherry Leaf

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Cherry leaf is the foliage of a cherry tree, not the fruit. It smells of a snapped green twig with a dry bitter-almond flash under it, and a faint hay sweetness that arrives a few minutes later. The almond is thin and dry. The source that describes it says outright that it is 'nothing like marzipan or cherry candy', so it must not be scored as a sweet or gourmand note. Only one source describes it directly, so this vector is held loosely.

Scent Profile

Green leads and is the first thing the source says twice over: 'crushed green leaf', 'sharp green snap'. Nutty is the bitter-almond benzaldehyde, and it is what gives this note an identity separate from every other leaf published here. It is scored below the green on the source's own word, 'whisper', and because the source insists the almond is 'dry and thin'. Tobacco_hay is the coumarinic sweetness, described as 'dried hay at the edge of an orchard'. It is held at trace strength rather than higher because the source's own timeline puts it after the opening rather than in it. Below, aromatic_herbal carries the bitterness and the laurel-leaf comparison, sour the astringency the source names twice ('slightly bitter', 'more astringent than violet leaf'), and dry_woody the 'wet bark'. Fruity is on purpose: every time a source mentions cherry fruit, it is to say the leaf is not it.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeTop · ~3h lasting

Family Green & Aromatic, Sweet & Gourmand

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Prunus avium (sweet cherry) and Prunus cerasus (sour cherry), Rosaceae. No commercial essential oil or absolute of cherry leaf exists. Premiere Peau states the note is reconstructed as an accord from benzaldehyde for the almond, cis-3-hexenol and cis-3-hexenyl acetate for the green, and traces of coumarin. The almond smell is real chemistry, not a poetic reach: crushing the leaf ruptures cells, and the cyanogenic glycosides amygdalin and prunasin break down enzymatically to release benzaldehyde. Scopoletin, a coumarin derivative, supplies the hay warmth. Wikipedia records the same mechanism for the genus, but its article is on Prunus serotina, a third species, so it corroborates the chemistry and not this leaf.

Usage in Perfumery

A green modifier in the top. Premiere Peau places it between the sharp grassiness of galbanum and the softer powdery green of violet leaf, and names violet leaf, galbanum and hedione as partners in green-floral hearts. Attested on 4 Fragrantica entries and 6 Parfumo entries across 4 brands. Fragrantica files it under Greens, herbs and fougeres.