- Latin name
- Cupressus sempervirens
- Family
- Cypress family (Cupressaceae)
- Origin
- Spain, France, Morocco
- Parts used
- twigs with needles, and cones
- Raw materials
- essential oil
- Extraction
- steam distillation
- Olfactory group
- aromatic, woody (coniferous)
- Position in the pyramid
- top and heart
- Synthetic substitutes
- alpha-pinene, delta-3-carene, coniferous bases
The Italian cypress is a tall, slender “candle” tree without which the landscapes of Tuscany and Provence are hard to imagine. For perfumery the young twigs with scale-like needles and the cones are distilled.
How it smells: fresh-resinous, coniferous and dry, with a woody, faintly smoky and herbal shade. Cypress sounds cleaner and cooler than pine or spruce — like the shade under a cypress on a hot day.
In perfumery cypress adds verticality and coolness to a fragrance: it is loved in masculine fougères and chypres, and in modern Mediterranean compositions where it pairs with citrus and herbs.
What it pairs with: with lavender and bergamot — classic fougères, with incense — solemn resinous compositions, with citrus and fig — a “Mediterranean summer”, with vetiver and cedar — dry woody scents, with juniper — mountain freshness.
Good to know: cypresses live very long — some trees in Iran and Italy are several hundred, even more than a thousand, years old.
Fragrances with Cypress
