Benzyl salicylate

Description and usage notes:

Very useful material particularly in conjunction with aldehydes where it acts to blend and soften them. Good in many fragrance types to give naturalness and smooth out the blend.

Weak odour, but very good fixative, sweet-floral, spicy, balsamic, slightly phenolic, azalea, gillyflower, ylang ylang, narcissus.

A widely used fine fragrance ingredient, essential for some early 20th Century classics, also useful as a solvent for some crystalline musks and as a UV stabiliser.

Arctander starts by elucidating the difficulty of describing its odour: “Very faint, sweet-floral, slightly balsamic odor. This ester is, according to the judgment of some people (including perfumers) absolutely odorless, while others find it ’musky’ of odor. Trace impurities can greatly influence the odor of this high-boiling chemical. Widely used as a blender in perfumery, and generally as a mild, floral background with an effect not unlike that of Ylang-Ylang (except for power and topnote). Excellent in all florals, Carnation, Wallflower in particular.”