Indian Prickly Ash
Note Profile
About
Indian prickly ash is the fruit of Zanthoxylum rhetsa, a tree of the same genus as Sichuan pepper and timur. Perfumery uses it as a bright top note: citrus first, then a tingling pepperiness. Two Parfumo placements both put it in a green, citrus-led opening. No source found describes Z. rhetsa itself. Every odour description reachable was written for Z. armatum, the related species sold as timur, so this vector is scored from the genus and carries wide spreads throughout.
Scent Profile
Citrus leads because it is the one thing the trade sources agree on for the genus: Aromology calls the oil 'deep citrus', and both perfumes that use the term place it against bergamot or a green citrus opening. It is set below timur's because timur has direct, species-matched sources and this note does not. Fresh_spice is the 'warm, peppery undertone' Aromology names, and it is the trait the whole genus is bought for. Fruity carries the 'lychees and mixed berries' claim, with tropical holding the lychee half of it. Cooling_mentholic carries India Essential Oils' 'fresh sweet wintergreen', which is the single most surprising claim in the evidence and the one that most contradicts the other trade source. It gets the widest spread in the vector at 0.24, because either two chemotypes are both sold under the genus name or one of the two descriptions is wrong, and this dossier could not tell which. Green is inferred from the company the note keeps in both attested perfumes, not from any stated odour claim, so it too runs wide. Aromatic_herbal is the terpenic quality that sits under every Zanthoxylum oil. Below, mineral and warm_spice hold the tingling, numbing edge the published sichuan-pepper and japanese-pepper vectors both carry, and dry_woody the fact that the material is a dried tree fruit. None of those three is stated by a source for this species. They are small with wide spreads rather than zero, because zeroing them would assert an absence nobody claimed.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
The dried fruit and pericarp of Zanthoxylum rhetsa, a tree of the Rutaceae family found across India and South East Asia. Wikipedia gives 'Indian prickly ash' as the common English name for that species. The genus is the same one that yields Sichuan pepper (Z. bungeanum) and timur (Z. armatum). It is not related to ash in the ordinary English sense: Fraxinus is a different family entirely, and the shared word is the whole overlap. The two trade sources reached that describe an odour both sell oil labelled Z. armatum, not Z. rhetsa.
Usage in Perfumery
A top note. Parfumo attests the term twice, both times at the top: Histoires de Parfums 7753, beside ivy, galbanum and Italian bergamot, and Heretic Midnight Toker, beside cistus and patchouli CO2. Both are green, citrus-forward openings. It does the job pink pepper and Sichuan pepper do, adding lift and a prickle to a citrus start.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Indian Prickly Ash
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Indian Prickly Ash appears prominently.
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