Blackberry
Juicy, dark berry sweetness with a tart, jammy edge and a hint of green leaves.
You may know it from Fresh blackberries or blackberry jam
Where it comes from
Built from aroma materials because blackberry fruit yields no practical perfume extract.
Worth knowing
It usually recreates the fruit’s smell rather than using blackberry juice or extract.
About blackberry
Botanically, a blackberry is an aggregate fruit made of many small drupelets. Varieties run from sweet to tart, and the dark colour comes from anthocyanins. No natural blackberry extract is commercially available for perfumery.
A lab analysis of Rubus fruticosus fruit found 38 volatile compounds, with myrtenol the most abundant, and the mix spread across terpenes, alcohols and aldehydes with no single dominant odorant. The glossary at Premiere Peau puts blackberry among the least defined fruit notes and says that, unlike peach or raspberry, it has no single impact molecule and is always built as an accord. Tendance Parfums describes the note as a dark fruity impression inspired by the wild bramble, recreated mainly through synthesis.
What an accord can look like is easiest to see in a hobbyist recipe published by Olfactorian. It assembles the berry from bergamot, blackcurrant absolute, raspberry ketone, a ready-made berry base, heliotropin, Hedione, linalool and esters, with ethyl maltol added for jamminess. It is one amateur's route, offered with the advice to add more ethyl maltol if you want it sweeter.
Descriptions of the smell vary. Premiere Peau hears a dark, juicy burst at the start, sweeter than raspberry and less sharp. Bon Parfumeur calls it mild and slightly acidic, with earthy and woody undertones. Tendance Parfums lists a touch of vegetal acidity, a sweet base and a slight skin-like bitterness, and says the note can lean juicy, herbaceous, or dark and fermented. On skin, Premiere Peau reports that the fruit fades after some hours into a warm, powdery residue of violet, wood and caramel.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Blackberry in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Blackberry most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Blackberry
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 Blackberry.