Clove Leaf
Note Profile
About
Clove Leaf is the steam-distilled leaf oil of Syzygium aromaticum, a different article of trade from clove bud oil. It runs 80 to 92 per cent eugenol but only 0.20 to 1 per cent eugenyl acetate, and that missing ester is the whole difference. It smells of clove without the sweetness.
Scent Profile
A hot, raw clove that leads on warm spice and lands hard rather than softly. Behind it a harsh phenolic edge reads as medicinal, close to a dentist's surgery at full strength. That edge is raw eugenol, not smoke. No source fetched uses a smoke word about this oil. The beta-caryophyllene at 4 to 17 per cent gives a dry woody, faintly peppery body, and a thin green grassiness is the only trace of the leaf left in the smell. What is missing is the point: no sweetness, no floral rounding, none of the bud's finish.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Steam distillation of clove leaves, mostly in Indonesia, Madagascar and Tanzania, at a yield of about 3.5 per cent after eight hours. Indonesia alone makes around 2,500 tonnes a year. The crude oil is dark brown, far cheaper than bud oil, and it is the main industrial source of natural eugenol rather than a fine-fragrance material.
Usage in Perfumery
A cost-effective eugenol source. It appears in carnation, rose and white floral accords and in functional perfumery, and it is a feedstock for vanillin. Trade sources say it is little used in fine fragrance because it brings an old, heavy and voluminous effect, and formulators reach for clove bud oil or isolated eugenol instead. Eugenol is IFRA-restricted and an EU declarable allergen.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Clove Leaf
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Clove Leaf appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.