Orange
Juicy, sweet citrus peel with a sunny, lightly tangy freshness.
You may know it from Freshly peeled sweet orange
Where it comes from
Pressed from orange peel or recreated with aroma chemicals.
Worth knowing
Orange blossom is a different, floral perfume material.
About orange
Orange oil comes from the rind. The cells that make it sit in the peel of Citrus sinensis, the sweet orange, and the juice and flesh play no part. Most of the oil exists because of the juice trade: it is a by-product of juice production, recovered by centrifugation and sold as cold-pressed oil. In the Florida-style FMC extractor it is washed off the fruit with water, separated in centrifuges and collected, and a food-technology review says most of it goes to flavour companies that fractionate it.
The yield is small, at 0.4 to 0.6 mL of oil per kg of fruit in one review. Givaudan, which sells a Brazilian Pera orange oil, calls Brazil one of the world's largest suppliers. The same review puts orange oil at 8 to 12 euros per kg, against 12 to 15 for mandarin and 30 to 35 for lemon.
Chemically the oil is mostly one molecule. D-limonene makes up 90 to 95% of it, with myrcene, valencene, linalool and aldehydes in the remainder. Valencene is a sesquiterpene named after Valencia oranges. Worldwide production of d-limonene runs above 70 million kg a year.
The Tisserand Institute says sweet orange is generally thought not to be phototoxic, even when expressed. Limonene is still a recognised fragrance contact allergen, and the EU scientific committee's worry is its oxidised forms, which are significantly more allergenic than the pure substance.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Orange in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Orange most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with 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 Orange.