recommended materials for a juniper accord; coniferous materials that aren’t too terpy/medicinal.

[IthinkIcancancan]

I have juniper berry co2 and am in the processs of ordering the sco2 from Liberty Naturals. Other juniper-oriented ingredients that have popped on my radar:
- juniper berry absolute (any thoughts?)
- pine needle (was recommended this by a member and am going to order the oils of several varieties to compare)

from the naturals perspective, I feel like these aforementioned materials are my best bet. But what about aroma chemicals? What comes to mind is sabinene (seems to only be available via pellwall) and beta-pinene.

I was also curious in this same vein, if you had any ideas for coniferous materials that had less of a sharp terpenic quality? Less of the medicinal essential oil diffuser kind of effect that is obviously greater with conifer type materials. Of course I see that this might be a completely crazy pursuit. But yes. An SFE rectified kind of conifer material, where those medicinal aspects are dialed way down and could be useful in a gin and tonic type of perfume. That is the dream.


Would love to know your thoughts.

 

[mnitabach]

Dunno about aromachems, but the Red Pine & Grey Pine essential oils sold by Perfumer's Apprentice are absolutely gorgeous natural pine needle materials.

 

[jfrater]

I sell a special Douglas fir needle essential oil from New Zealand which is incredibly beautiful - it is not at all too terpsey - the top notes are sweet - almost like fir balsam.

https://fraterworks.com/products/douglas-fir-needle-oil

 

[Hedione HC]

I strongly second @jfrater 's recommendation for Douglas fir essential oil. Although I've no own experience with NZ Douglas fir, I'm quite familiar with oils from other countries. This oil indeed shows some attractive and unusual fruity-floral facets. It's even said to have a whiskey-like note. Well, I'm not sure about that, but there's so much sparkling fruity-floralcy ongoing that there's no need for whiskey...

Another conifer oil with somehow similar construction regarding fruity notes is definitely Giant fir essential oil (Abies grandis). This oil possesses a bunch of green-fruity notes in the direction of apple, lemon and lime. Like Douglas fir, Giant fir is a sparkling and joyful scent without terpenic harshness found in other conifer oils (especially from the Pine genus (Pinus), which are generally high in pinenes).

 

[David Ruskin]

Cypress oil is an elegant coniferous oil.

Amongst aromachemicals I would suggest a couple of aliphatic aldehydes; C10, C12 Lauric, and C12 MNA. Borneol and iso bornyl acetate are found in all pine type fragrances. Iso E Super, will add diffusion.

For the herbal aspect of Juniper, think about Sage, Artemisia, Cedarleaf.

The flavour of gin is, as is well known, built around Juniper. However many other botanicals are also used. Look at Lemon oil, Orris, and Coriander. So use linalol, and something like Irival, or Iris Nitrile for a dryness that is also part of Juniper.

 

[RomanB]

Try Koavone and dihydro beta ionone for another facet. Koavone is closer to a top note, coniferous, but with a woody ionone character. Dihydro beta ionone has notes of cut juniper timber. I have a slab of juniper and had an opportunity to compare - it was very surprizsng how close they are in some aspect.

 

[IthinkIcancancan]

Dunno about aromachems, but the Red Pine & Grey Pine essential oils sold by Perfumer's Apprentice are absolutely gorgeous natural pine needle materials.

Yes I saw those oils. How would you compare them? Which is less sharp and medicinal? The description for the grey pine says it has a "sugary" scent to it. No idea what to make of that lol.

 

[IthinkIcancancan]

Try Koavone and dihydro beta ionone for another facet. Koavone is closer to a top note, coniferous, but with a woody ionone character. Dihydro beta ionone has notes of cut juniper timber. I have a slab of juniper and had an opportunity to compare - it was very surprizsng how close they are in some aspect.

Thank you. Just added to my cart

 

[IthinkIcancancan]

Cypress oil is an elegant coniferous oil.

Amongst aromachemicals I would suggest a couple of aliphatic aldehydes; C10, C12 Lauric, and C12 MNA. Borneol and iso bornyl acetate are found in all pine type fragrances. Iso E Super, will add diffusion.

For the herbal aspect of Juniper, think about Sage, Artemisia, Cedarleaf.

The flavour of gin is, as is well known, built around Juniper. However many other botanicals are also used. Look at Lemon oil, Orris, and Coriander. So use linalol, and something like Irival, or Iris Nitrile for a dryness that is also part of Juniper.

Thank you for this comment and all these recommendations

I was thinking that the Italian Cypress variety might be best for me. The blue cypress variety sounded smokier.

Looking at the various forms of Artemesia, it seems mugwort and wormwood are more preferable over Davana (boozy and fruity?) to achieve the greenness. I had talked to Stillpoint aromatics and they told me their wormwood is sharper and more medicinal than the mugwort. I have never smelled either.

 

[Scntwtk]

Regarding Artemisia yes you are correct, Mugwort is the most coniferous by far - not to say that wormwood or davana should be avoided with juniper, its is always a good idea to try.
Mugwort is very nice with juniper in small amount alongside equally small amount of sparemint. Small amount of dynascone can be nice also to prolong the scent of confifer notes like juniper and add a lovely bitterness that is welcome in say a gin type accord.
Fir balsam absolute is also very beautiful and long lasting. I find it is a great companion to juniper, but be careful with dosage it has a very high maltol content and can ruin freshness or make the composition feel heavy. Good luck!

 

[pkiler]

Thank you for this comment and all these recommendations

I was thinking that the Italian Cypress variety might be best for me. The blue cypress variety sounded smokier.

Looking at the various forms of Artemesia, it seems mugwort and wormwood are more preferable over Davana (boozy and fruity?) to achieve the greenness. I had talked to Stillpoint aromatics and they told me their wormwood is sharper and more medicinal than the mugwort. I have never smelled either.

Just because Wormwood and Davana are both artemisia family plants, they smell nothing alike.

 

[mnitabach]

Yes I saw those oils. How would you compare them? Which is less sharp and medicinal? The description for the grey pine says it has a "sugary" scent to it. No idea what to make of that lol.

You need to just try them both & see which works better for your application.

 

[David Ruskin]

When working we used Armoise oil, Artemesia oil, and Davana oil. They smelled different from each other, although Armoise and Artemesia smelled similar; Davana totally different. I did not realise they were related, nor did I know which particular type of Armois and Artemesia were used. The dalmatian sage oil we used was similar to Armoise as well. The major differences wre the amount of thujones present and the ratio of those thujones.

 

[perfumum]

Seconding the suggestion of Cypress. The most important thing for a good juniper note is usually just a good juniper oil. The CO2 is similar but, when I was choosing one (I ended up comparing about eight) the EO stood out. Bear in mind that all Juniper naturals are priced higher than normal at the moment.
On the corollary naturals side, look for Pine needle absolute super (the Firmenich one), Pine siberian eo, alpha pinene, Terpinen-4-ol and so on.

Have you used woody ketone/herbac or Spirodecane? Those are the most performing synths in this family along with things like plicatone. The koavone suggestion is good, but can over-sweeten.

 

[IthinkIcancancan]

Seconding the suggestion of Cypress. The most important thing for a good juniper note is usually just a good juniper oil. The CO2 is similar but, when I was choosing one (I ended up comparing about eight) the EO stood out. Bear in mind that all Juniper naturals are priced higher than normal at the moment.
On the corollary naturals side, look for Pine needle absolute super (the Firmenich one), Pine siberian eo, alpha pinene, Terpinen-4-ol and so on.

Have you used woody ketone/herbac or Spirodecane? Those are the most performing synths in this family along with things like plicatone. The koavone suggestion is good, but can over-sweeten.

thank you for this information

Unfortunately I cannot seem to find Pine Needle Absolute Super for sale, or anything else about it for that matter on google. The one thing that popped up from Firmenich is "Pine Needle Abs Vulcain" but is described as leathery and woody. Not sure if that is the same thing.

I also cannot seem to find those ACs for sale you mentioned in the second paragraph. I'll have to keep looking. I don't have a professional relationship with these ingredient manufacturers so perhaps that is why I am running into problems.