Lesser Calamint

Note Profile

Botanical

About

A wild mint-family herb that is not a clean mint. Sweetly minty on top, oregano-like and dry underneath, with a green leaf body between them.

Scent Profile

Aromatic_herbal leads by a narrow margin and carries the oregano half of the identity. Wikipedia gives the plainest statement in the dossier: the lesser calamint 'smells like a cross between mint and oregano', and separately calls the leaves 'oregano-like'. Stillpoint's 'soft herbal-green undercurrent' is the same thing from the trade side. It is held below oregano itself and catnip (0.82) because in every source here the herbal side is the undercurrent and the mint is the top. Cooling_mentholic is that mint top: 'sweetly minty' from the supplier, 'a pennyroyal smell' from Wikipedia, and 'the energetic clarity of peppermint' in the supplier's own comparison. It sits well under peppermint (0.85) and pennyroyal (0.80), because both sources qualify the mintiness rather than assert it neat. The two leads are close together on purpose, because the sources describe a hybrid and neither one wins. Green is the leaf: 'herbal-green undercurrent' from one source, 'grey-green leaves' from the other. Below the line, warm_spice carries the phenolic bite that makes oregano read warm rather than fresh; the published oregano note scores it and a cross should get less. Floral is Stillpoint's 'warm floral breath', named once and called nothing stronger. Sweet_vanillic is the 'sweetly' in 'sweetly minty', which modifies the mint rather than standing on its own.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeTop · ~3h lasting

Family Green & Aromatic, Fresh & Citrus

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

Origin

Clinopodium nepeta, also catalogued as Calamintha nepeta, a low grey-green perennial of southern Europe. In Italian cooking it is nepitella. The essential oil is steam-distilled from the leaves and flowering tops. Only one aromatherapy supplier was found selling it, and no fragrance house publishes a data sheet for the species.

Usage in Perfumery

Documented use is thin. Fragrantica files it under greens, herbs and fougeres, which fits: it is a top-to-heart herbal accent for fougere and aromatic structures, where the oregano side gives it more grip than a straight mint would have. Two perfumes on Fragrantica and one on Parfumo list it.