Benzyl acetate

Description and usage notes:

Very widely used and almost essential in jasmine and gardenia accords: should be in every perfumer’s palette.

Arctander tells us this: “Very extensively used in perfumery, from the lowest priced industrial odors to the most highly appreciated cosmetic fragrances, often constituting the main ingredient in a perfume oil. It is almost inevitably the largest component in Jasmin and Gardenia fragrances, and it enters in a multitude of other floral fragrance types in smaller proportions. Its poor tenacity is usually compensated for by proper blending with higher esters of Benzyl alcohol, and with suitable fixatives. In the industrial odors, the volatility of Benzyl-acetate is often only an advantage.”

This section from Calkin & Jellinek is particularly indicative of the widespread application of this ingredient: “Many floral notes overlap in the types of material from which they can be made. The same eight materials—phenylethyl alcohol, hydroxycitronellal, benzyl acetate, phenylacetaldehyde, citronellol, hexyl cinnamic aldehyde, terpineol, and indol—mixed together in different proportions can produce either a jasmin, a lilac, a muguet, or a hyacinth. The list also includes three materials that occur in nearly all rose compounds.” 

Jean Claude Elena, in his book The Diary of a Nose,  recommends this material for two of his “colorful basket of apples” :

• Green Apples
  • fructone
  • benzyl acetate
  • cis-3-hexenol
• Yellow Apples
  • fructone
  • hexyl acetate
  • benzyl acetate

• Red Apples
  • fructone
  • allyl caproate
  • hexyl acetate