Lilial

Description and usage notes:

One of a range of synthetics used to recreate the scent of the Lily of the Valley (muguet). Like most of the other materials that imitate that flower it is an aldehyde. Lilial is widely used in fine fragrance and other areas and combines well with other floral and green materials.

The scent is described as floral muguet, watery, green, powdery and cumin.

According to Arctander this aldehyde has notes resembling hydroxycitronellal and Cyclamen aldehyde: “Sweet, yet refreshing and intensely floral-green odor of considerable radiance, although at the same time quite tenacious”.

He goes on to tell us it is “An excellent floralizer in itself, it also blends well with other floral materials, as well as with the musks and woody notes. It is far more versatile than Cyclamen aldehyde, or one can say that it is much more difficult to ’overdose’ Lilial than it is to overdose Cyclamal. Yet, Lilial gives floral effects at lower concentration than Hydroxycitronellal, a fact that almost compensates for the cost difference. A conventional material in Lily, Lilac, Muguet, Orangeblossom, Magnolia, Sweet Pea, Frangipanni, it is also used in Chypres, Orientals, wood complexes and musky bases, as weIl as in modem fantasy soap perfumes, etc.” 

Jean Claude Elena, in his book Diary of a Nose, suggests that in combination with Undecavertol this material can produce an effective illusion of the smell of lime blossoms (also known as linden blossom). He says “I have never succeeded in using this tree’s blossom to my advantage.  All I can do is fall asleep in its dark shade”.  While Elena was sleeping however the Pell Wall perfumer has incorporated a complex linden blossom accord, including both these materials into the fragrance Beaver, by Zoologist Perfumes.