Star Anise
Sweet, warm licorice with a peppery, slightly woody spice smell.
You may know it from star anise in mulled wine or five-spice cooking
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled oil from the dried star-shaped fruit of an evergreen tree.
Botanical name: Illicium verum
Worth knowing
It smells similar to anise, but comes from a different plant.
About star anise
Star anise is the dried fruit of Illicium verum, a medium-sized evergreen tree native to south China and northeast Vietnam. The fruit is a ring of usually eight boat-shaped follicles arranged around a central axis. It is harvested just before ripening. Oil for perfumery is steam-distilled from the dried fruit.
Most people meet the smell in a kitchen long before a perfume. The fruit is an ingredient of the traditional five-spice powder of Chinese cooking, and the same pods turn up in phở, masala chai and biryani. A perfumery journal, Olfastory, calls it a variety of anise with a very different form but a somewhat similar scent. Its molecule, anethole, is 13 times sweeter than sugar, and a 2024 extraction study found a strong anethole aroma in every extract it tested, whether made with ethanol, steam or supercritical CO2.
A brand glossary describes the smell as warm, sweet and unmistakably licorice, slightly medicinal, with a phenolic warmth. The same glossary places star anise in the heart-to-base range, where it gives aromatic sweetness without the heaviness of vanilla or the coldness of mint, and lists amber, gourmand and spicy-aromatic accords as its territory.
The name invites a mix-up with Japanese star anise, Illicium anisatum, which is highly toxic and inedible. Its smell is weaker and said to lean toward cardamom, and in Japan its dried and powdered leaves are burned as incense. Laboratory tests can separate the two species, because anisatin shows up in true star anise only at trace levels, up to 0.3 ppm.
The fruit has another job outside scent and food. Its shikimic acid has been a primary precursor in the pharmaceutical synthesis of the anti-influenza drug oseltamivir, sold as Tamiflu, although fermentation had become the preferred route by 2018.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Star Anise in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Star Anise most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Star Anise
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 Star Anise.