Stone Pine Needle
Note Profile
About
Stone pine needle is the steam-distilled oil of the needles of a stone pine. It is a conifer needle note, green and dry-woody, but with a citrus lift that the common pine notes do not have. The one composition study specific to Pinus pinea found limonene first at 35.9 per cent and alpha-pinene a minor 6.4 per cent, which is the reverse of the alpha-pinene-led profile that makes ordinary pine oil smell turpentine-sharp.
Scent Profile
Green leads and is the needle itself, the facet every published conifer needle note in this vocabulary carries. Citrus is the distinguishing one, and it is the only number here with a measurement behind it: limonene is 35.9 per cent of the P. pinea needle oil, against 6.4 per cent alpha-pinene, so the terpene body reads citrus-sweet rather than turpentine-sharp. Dry_woody is the pinene and the roughly 19 per cent sesquiterpene fraction. Amber_resinous is set deliberately below pine needle's 0.52, because the balsamic weight of a needle oil rides on alpha-pinene and bornyl acetate and this oil is measured low in the first and the study does not report the second. Below the naming line sit aromatic_herbal, fresh_spice from the caryophyllene and humulene, cooling_mentholic and mineral for the bitter-woody camphene edge that Premiere Peau names, and fruity for limonene's sweeter half.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Steam-distilled from the needles and twigs of a stone pine. Two different trees carry that common name and the sources do not agree on which one this note is. Pinus pinea is the Mediterranean umbrella pine that yields pine nuts, and it is the species measured by Nasri et al. in the Journal of Essential Oil Research: six Tunisian populations, 57 components, limonene 35.9 per cent, alpha-pinene 6.4 per cent, sesquiterpenes about 19 per cent led by beta-cubebene, beta-caryophyllene, alpha-humulene and beta-farnesene. Pinus cembra is the Swiss stone or arolla pine, and it is what the one supplier selling an oil labelled Stone Pine actually stocks. The vector here scores the needle oil the two trees have in common and leans on the P. pinea measurement for the citrus lift.
Usage in Perfumery
A heart note for conifer and forest accords where ordinary pine reads too sharp. It brings the green needle character without the solvent edge that alpha-pinene carries, so it sits under citrus openings and over dry woods more easily than pine or pine needle do. Use it in fougere, aromatic and outdoor compositions.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Stone Pine Needle
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Stone Pine Needle appears prominently.
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