Not drawn yet: a drawing of what it smells like.

Citral

Ingredients · Citrus · top note

Citral

Say itSIT-ral

Intense fresh lemon peel; sweet, sharp, lemon-candy.

What it is
A molecule made in a lab.
Where it comes from
made industrially from isobutene, or isolated from litsea oil
When you smell it
Top notes: the first minutes.
What perfumers do with it
The core 'lemon' molecule for lemon, verbena and lemongrass effects; breaks down in soap and bleach.
Worth knowing
Chemical makers produce it by the thousands of tonnes, mostly as a building block for vitamin A, ionones and menthol.
Rules
Limited. Skin sensitizer; IFRA dose limits by product type
Also called
Geranial + neral; 3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadienal; lemonal

On the label of 177 of the 232 perfumes read so far

No. 5Chanel · printed “Citral”SauvageDior · printed “Citral”ShalimarGuerlain · printed “Citral”MitsoukoGuerlain · printed “Citral”Eau SauvageDior · printed “Citral”AngelMugler · printed “Citral”

Sources