Bitter Orange
Sharp, tart orange peel with a green, slightly bitter zestiness.
You may know it from Seville orange marmalade
Where it comes from
Essential oil is pressed from the peel of bitter orange fruit.
Botanical name: Citrus × aurantium
Worth knowing
It smells more bitter and peel-like than sweet eating oranges.
IFRA rules
IFRA restricts Bitter orange peel oil expressed to 1.25% in fine fragrance, citing phototoxicity.
From the IFRA Standards, 51st Amendment. A perfume that lists this note may use a synthetic version the Standard does not cover.
About bitter orange
Bitter orange is Citrus × aurantium, a hybrid of pomelo and wild mandarin native to Southeast Asia. The oil comes from the rind, cold expressed instead of distilled, and it runs from orange-yellow to orange-brown. ScenTree describes the extraction as done in a machine called the sfumatrice, which pricks the zest to release the aromatic compounds.
Suppliers list trees grown for oil in Brazil, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, India, Mexico, Paraguay, Sicily and Spain, among other places. The fruit has a long second career in the kitchen and behind the bar. Seville oranges are prized for British marmalade because they carry more pectin than sweet oranges, the peel flavours liqueurs such as Cointreau and goes into bitters, and Curaçao liqueur is made with the dried peel of laraha, a bitter orange variety grown on Curaçao.
How far the oil sits from sweet orange depends on who is describing it. Mountain Rose Herbs and ScenTree call it a dry citrus note, more peel-like than sweet orange, with soft green and slightly bitter pith facets. ScenTree adds that it brings an amber facet, and an animalic and floral one, to an orange accord. One supplier, Quinessence, calls the aroma virtually identical to sweet orange, so the difference is not agreed on everywhere.
In a formula it works as a top note. A glossary of perfumery terms from Première Peau says citrus oils anchor colognes and hesperidic structures.
The same glossary points out that expressed citrus peel oils contain furocoumarins such as bergapten and psoralen, which intercalate with skin DNA and amplify UV damage. The IFRA rules set the limits for it.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Bitter Orange in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Bitter Orange most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Bitter Orange
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Bitter Orange.