Tangerine Leaves

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Tangerine leaves smell of the stem, not the fruit. The opening is a sharp bitter green, the smell of snapping a twig off a citrus tree, with a metallic freshness the peel never has. A thin floral whisper sits underneath it. It dries to a dry, papery green, closer to pressed leaves than to fresh ones.

Scent Profile

Green leads, and both sources lead with it too: a sharp bitter-green snap, vegetal rather than fruity, the smell of a broken citrus twig. Citrus is the second axis and the one that separates this from every other leaf note. Fragrantica calls it a citrus odour outright, and the trade glossary says it is more specifically citrus than a generic petitgrain bigarade. It is held well under the fruit note at tangerine 0.92 because both sources insist this is the stem and not the peel. Mineral is the metallic freshness, named twice in the same source and the most distinctive thing said about the material. Aromatic_herbal is the petitgrain-family backbone, supported by the Fragrantica group of greens, herbs and fougeres, and set below published petitgrain at 0.55 because the glossary calls this the more vegetal of the two. Below the line, floral is the linalool-driven whisper the glossary describes, earthy is the earthy in Fragrantica's one-line descriptor, tobacco_hay is the dry papery pressed-leaf drydown, fruity is the faint grape from methyl anthranilate, sour carries the bitterness, and dry_woody is the twig in the still.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Green & Aromatic, Fresh & Citrus

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

Origin

The oil is steam-distilled from the leaves and twigs of Citrus reticulata, mainly in Sicily and Calabria. It belongs to the petitgrain family, the oils taken from citrus foliage rather than from the fruit or the flower. Its chemistry centres on linalool and linalyl acetate, with traces of methyl anthranilate that read faintly of grape.

Usage in Perfumery

A heart note used for lift and for a bitter green edge. It goes into citrus and cologne structures that need foliage rather than more peel, and into green and fougere compositions where a soft petitgrain would be too herbal. Fragrantica files it under greens, herbs and fougeres and describes it as a green, oily, explosive and earthy citrus odour.