Pyrogallol (1,2,3-trihydroxybenzene) is a phenolic solid with a faintly medicinal, dry-woody and slightly smoky character. In perfumery it is rarely used directly as an odorant — it is more a phenolic chemical intermediate — but the raw material smells bitter, tannic and mildly phenolic, reminiscent of oak bark or gallnut extract.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, page 1219.
White crystals or fused mass.
Very slightly soluble in water, soluble in alcohol, oils and aqueous alkali.
Dry-woody, very tar-like odor, but not unpleasant in dilution. Also smokey, resembling odor of wood-fire, with no petroleum-tar type odor.
The title material is occasionally used as part of 'Beech wood' or 'Beech tar' (creosote) notes in 'leather' type fragrances. It will blend well with Oakmoss and Labdanum for such purposes, but it tends to discolor when exposed to daylight, and only very low concentrations in the final fragrance are fairly safe against this drawback.
1) from Pyrogallol in aqueous alkali with Methyl iodide. 2) from Pyrogallol trimethylether by demethylation with alkali in water or alcohol. 3) Pyrogallol trimethyl ether is prepared the conventional way from Pyrogallol with Dimethylsulfate in cold, diluted Sodium hydroxide solution.