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

Grapefruit mercaptan

Ingredients · Citrus · top note

Grapefruit mercaptan

Say itGrapefruit mur-KAP-tun

Explosive juicy grapefruit; sulfurous and tropical, catty at full strength.

What it is
A molecule made in a lab, first made by Firmenich in 1982.
Where it comes from
synthesized, occurs in traces in grapefruit juice
When you smell it
Top notes: the first minutes.
What perfumers do with it
Used at parts per million to make grapefruit, passion fruit and citrus accords burst with juiciness.
Worth knowing
Its detection threshold, around 0.00002 parts per billion, is among the lowest ever recorded for any odorant.
Also called
1-p-Menthene-8-thiol; thioterpineol

Not on the label of any of the 232 perfumes read so far.