Cloves
Warm, dry, sweet-spicy cloves with a peppery, medicinal edge.
You may know it from Clove-spiced mulled wine or gingerbread
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled oil from dried flower buds of the clove tree.
Botanical name: Syzygium aromaticum
Worth knowing
Its warming scent can resemble cinnamon, but it is sharper and more medicinal.
About cloves
A clove is a flower bud. It comes from a tree in the myrtle family, Syzygium aromaticum, and the buds are picked when they are only 1.5 to 2 centimetres long, then dried. In Indonesia the spice also goes into kretek, a type of clove cigarette.
The smell has a clear chemical centre. Eugenol makes up 72 to 90% of clove essential oil and is the compound most responsible for the aroma. Which part of the tree the oil comes from shifts the numbers, and sources disagree on the exact ranges for bud, leaf and stem oil. One glossary describes leaf oil as raw, phenolic and harsher than bud oil, a cost-effective eugenol source for functional perfumery rather than fine fragrance. Scentspiracy adds that commercial eugenol is mostly isolated from cheap natural oils, since synthetic production is not industrially significant.
That one molecule has a second life in flowers. Perfumer's World says the smell of natural carnation comes almost solely from eugenol, so a carnation accord leans on eugenol, isoeugenol and clove bud oil. Isoeugenol, a relative of eugenol, is sold as a long-lasting spice material with carnation and clove character. Historically, eugenol from clove oil was also converted to vanillin. Among perfumes, YSL's Opium lists clove among its top notes, and Perfumer's World names eugenol as part of the central accord of L'Air du Temps.
Eugenol is also a regulated material. In the EU it has to be named on the label of leave-on cosmetics above 0.001%, according to Scentspiracy, and the same source gives IFRA's fine fragrance limit as 2.5%. How far eugenol causes allergic reactions in people is disputed, though some people do become sensitised.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Cloves in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Cloves most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Cloves
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 Cloves.