Coconut
Sweet, creamy coconut flesh with a milky, slightly nutty warmth.
You may know it from coconut-scented sunscreen
Where it comes from
Usually built from aroma chemicals, especially creamy coconut-like lactones.
Worth knowing
It usually is not made by extracting the coconut fruit.
About coconut
The material sold under the trade name Aldehyde C-18 has no aldehyde in it. It is gamma-nonalactone (C9H16O2), a cyclic ester, and it is the molecule most often behind the coconut in a perfume. Research on cooked rice, where it also turns up, describes it as a strong, sweet, coconut-like aroma. One ingredient page puts its staying power at roughly 300 hours on a blotter, and says it was first reported in the 1920s and widely used from the 1950s.
The same ingredient page lists it in peach, apricot, papaya, guava, currant, strawberry and raisin. A glossary from Premiere Peau goes further and says gamma-nonalactone does not naturally occur in Cocos nucifera at all, and that coconut in perfumery is a built accord: gamma-nonalactone and delta-decalactone layered together. The Good Scents Company describes delta-decalactone as creamy and peach-like, with a coconut character and celery undertones. A supplier blog adds that the gamma-nonalactone used in perfume is synthetic, sourced from manufacturers and not from coconuts.
Virgin coconut oil, for comparison, keeps a distinct coconut aroma of its own.
For most people the first contact is sunscreen. A suncare-fragrance supplier describes the classic sun-tan scent as cocoa butter, coconut oil and a hint of jasmine, and says Coppertone's scent is infused with coconut. Coppertone's fragrance has been called arguably the greatest work of scent branding ever, and is said to trigger strong autobiographical memories. One perfumery blog credits Creed Virgin Island Water, released in 2007, with establishing coconut as a fine-fragrance note and not just a sunscreen novelty.
Massoia lactone is a second, rarer material. It comes from the bark of the massoia tree, Cryptocarya massoy, native to New Guinea and listed Near Threatened by the IUCN. Removing the bark kills the tree. The same Premiere Peau glossary says perfumers now rebuild the massoia effect with delta-decalactone and gamma-nonalactone.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Coconut in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Coconut most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Coconut
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 Coconut.