Raspberry
Sweet, tangy raspberry jam with a bright berry-candy edge.
You may know it from Raspberry jam
Where it comes from
Usually built from aroma chemicals rather than extracted from raspberries.
Worth knowing
It usually smells sweeter and more candy-like than fresh fruit.
About raspberry
Raspberry ketone, also called frambinone, is described as the primary aroma compound of red raspberries. It shows up in other fruits too, including cranberries and blackberries. Bon Parfumeur says the raspberry note is recreated in the lab, especially with frambinone, and the amounts in the fruit are small enough that the compound is made industrially, for example by a Claisen-Schmidt condensation followed by catalytic hydrogenation.
Nobody extracts the berry itself, and the sources give different reasons. One calls the fruit too delicate to extract, another says berries cannot yield an essential oil, and a shop guide says the fruit is too chemically unstable. The natural version of the ketone, taken from the fruit, is called one of the most expensive natural flavour components in the food industry.
That same shop guide describes perfumery raspberry bases as raspberry ketone combined with ethyl maltol and hexyl acetate. It also mentions raspberry leaf absolute, which has a green, balsamic profile rather than true berry aroma, so the leaf is no stand-in for the fruit.
Other materials borrow the word. A supplier describes alpha-ionone as a warm, floral-fruity aroma reminiscent of violet and raspberry, and The Good Scents Company lists a somewhat raspberry-like fruity background for beta-ionone. Alpha-ionone was first characterized in the late 19th century, during work on the breakdown of carotenoids.
Osmoz describes the scent of the note as a cross between blackberry, strawberry and black currant.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Raspberry in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Raspberry most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Raspberry
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 Raspberry.