A green, hyacinth-like floral with an earthy, slightly rooty undertone. Softer, cleaner, and more stable than free phenylacetaldehyde — the acetal form tames the harsh, almost fecal edge and lets a sweet leafy-floral character come through. Useful for building narcissus, hyacinth, and green-floral effects.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, page 1083.
Colorless liquid.
Practically insoluble in water, soluble in alcohol and oils.
Powerful green-earthy, flower-stem-like odor, not as pungent as that of the aldehyde, and without the Bitter-almond note of Phenylacetaldehyde.
At concentrations below 10 ppm the taste is sweet-green, honey-spicy, but at higher concentrations it tends to be bitter, unpleasant.
This is one of the most widely used acetals in perfumery. Although always a minor component, it enters a multitude of fragrance types where it may lend green notes, earthy notes, floral notes, spicy notes or simply power. It performs excellently with Oakmoss and Vetiver, Geranium, Opopanax, etc. in Lilac, Rose, Muguet, Oriental bases, etc. and with the Methylionones in woody-floral-spicy complexes. It is often used in Gardenia, Reseda and Carnation to lend spicy foliage note to the sweet florals, or earthy-rooty notes in Reseda.
The acetal finds some use in flavor compositions for imitation Apricot, Cherry, Honey, spice and fruit-blends, etc. but the concentration is usually as low as 0.5 to 10 ppm in the finished product.
Produced from Phenylacetaldehyde and Methanol with dry Hydrogen chloride as dehydrating agent.