Pear
Juicy, crisp pear flesh with a light sweetness and watery freshness.
You may know it from A ripe pear
Where it comes from
Built from aroma chemicals, since pear fruit yields no practical perfume extract.
Botanical name: Pyrus
Worth knowing
It is usually a reconstruction, not oil pressed or distilled from pears.
About pear
The aroma of a pear comes from esters present in the fruit at parts-per-million levels. Two trade glossaries say plainly that no commercially viable natural extract exists, so the pear note in a bottle is assembled from individual molecules.
Analytical studies find esters to be the main contributors to pear aroma, and in the cultivar one paper measured, butyl acetate and hexyl acetate led. Other papers on pear volatiles call hexyl acetate a dominant ester that builds up as the fruit matures. Perfumers use it too, and it smells sweet, fruity and green, with an apple and pear character, and it is made by esterifying n-hexanol with acetic acid.
Isoamyl acetate is the one many people know from sweets. It gives banana or pear flavour to pear drops, and Scentspiracy describes it as banana-dominant with juicy pear nuances, lasting roughly four hours on a blotter. Too much of it reads as candy-like.
Then there is ethyl (E,Z)-2,4-decadienoate, called pear ester, which is described as a character-impact compound of the Bartlett (Williams) pear. The Good Scents Company lists its odour as green, waxy, pear, apple, sweet, fruity and tropical. Sources differ on its origin: one glossary calls it a synthetic compound, while the Good Scents entry lists it as available both natural and synthetic and says it occurs in the fruit.
One vendor's glossary describes a pear accord as a bright modifier between top and heart that softens citrus, lasting 4 to 8 hours on skin and much longer on fabric or a blotter. Scentspiracy states that neither hexyl acetate nor isoamyl acetate is restricted under IFRA Amendment 51.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Pear in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Pear most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Pear
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 Pear.