Farnesene

Description and usage notes:

Mild, balsamic and green-floral odour, this attractive material appears widely in the extracts and headspace of flowers and herbs.  The product being offered here is a mixture of isomers.

Arctander describes it as having a “Very mild, sweet and warm, rather nondescript odor of good tenacity.”  but he does not appear to see much use for it: “Apart from some possible use in the re-construction of certain essential oils, there is, to the author”s knowledge, very little, if any, use for this Sesquiterpene in perfumes as such.” 

Arcadi Boix Camps, by contrast, describes it in 1999 as “an increasingly used sesquiterpene found in almost all natural products, especially in gardenia.  It gives very interesting notes with florals and also combines well with opoponax, myrrh, benzoin and some of the products described in the honey and herbal honey subgroups.”