Thyme
Warm, dry crushed kitchen herbs with a sharp, camphor-like edge.
You may know it from Dried thyme in a spice jar
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled from thyme leaves and flowering tops; also made as aroma chemicals.
About thyme
The thyme behind most of this is Thymus vulgaris, a small woody evergreen shrub of the mint family, native to the western Mediterranean as far as southern Italy. The oil is steam-distilled from the flowering tops, and harvesting at flowering gives the highest oil content. One supplier's glossary puts the yield at roughly 0.5 to 1.5%.
Two grades turn up on ingredient lists. Red thyme oil is the first distillate. White thyme oil is red oil put through a second distillation that removes most of the thymol and carvacrol, so it comes out paler and less phenolic. Spain dominates production, in Almeria, Murcia and Albacete, mostly from Thymus zygis; one source gives 35 to 45 tonnes of oil a year for 1990 to 1998.
Thyme varies a great deal from plant to plant. A survey of 85 oil analyses sorted them into 20 chemotypes, named for thymol, linalool, geraniol, sabinene hydrate, carvacrol, borneol and others. A thymol-type oil from Richerenches in France was about 47% thymol with 20% p-cymene, while a linalool-type oil from Nyons was about 76% linalool with 14% linalyl acetate. One supplier calls the thymol type hot, phenolic and sharply herbal, and says the premium linalool type comes from southern France.
Thymol on its own is described by another ingredient supplier as warm and camphoraceous with slightly sweet medicinal facets, and it is the same thymol people know from the bathroom, where it serves as an antiseptic in mouthwash. A perfume-shop glossary has thyme opening on a green camphor burst and drying down woody and earthy, which is a description rather than a measurement. Perfumers use it in aromatic, fougere and chypre structures, next to lavender, rosemary, citrus and woods.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Thyme in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Thyme most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Thyme
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 Thyme.