The Notes
Neroli and Orange Blossom
Neroli, orange blossom, petitgrain and bitter orange all come from one tree, the Seville orange, and each smells of a different part of it.
Neroli is the oil distilled from the white blossom of the bitter orange tree, Citrus aurantium, the same tree that gives the Seville oranges of English marmalade. Orange blossom is a different extract of those same flowers, and the tree yields two more perfume materials besides, from its leaves and from its fruit.
One tree, four materials
The bitter orange has its origins in Asia, and Arab growers are credited with spreading it around the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. Most of the blossom used in perfumery today is picked in spring in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.
The blossom gives two materials. Steam distillation produces neroli, a light, clear oil; the scented water left behind in the still is orange flower water. Extracting the same flowers with a solvent produces orange blossom absolute, darker and richer. The leaves and green twigs, distilled, give petitgrain, and pressing the peel of the fruit gives bitter orange oil.
The name neroli is usually traced to Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, who married into the Orsini family and became Duchess of Bracciano and Princess of Nerola, a town north of Rome. In the late seventeenth century she made the scent of bitter orange blossom fashionable, using it to perfume her gloves and her bath.
Neroli and orange blossom: the difference
They come from the same flower and smell related, but not alike. Neroli is the cooler and airier of the two: fresh and green, a little metallic and spicy, with a honeyed sweetness that never quite settles. Orange blossom absolute is warmer, heavier and more plainly floral, close to honey and jasmine, with a slightly animal depth beneath. Petitgrain is the sharpest of the family, green, woody and bitter, a leaf rubbed between the fingers with the flower still somewhere in it. Bitter orange oil is the zest itself: bright, tart and faintly green.
How perfumers use them
Neroli was among the citrus oils of the original eau de Cologne, and petitgrain remains a mainstay of colognes. Neroli does most of its work at the top of a fragrance, often alongside bergamot and petitgrain, while the absolute is used for depth and warmth further down. Because they share a source, the four sit easily together, and a perfumer can use them to show the same tree from several sides: the fruit, the twig and the flower.
In our fragrances
The Orangery draws on almost the whole tree. Neroli and Seville orange open it with a bitter brightness, sharpened by the green twig of petitgrain; orange blossom follows at the heart with jasmine sambac and a crushed tomato-leaf note that smells of the potting bench, over white musk, a touch of orris butter and blond woods. It is glasshouse citrus in February, when the rest of the estate is white with frost.
In Henley, a whisper of orange blossom sits in the heart beside green fig leaf and a clean linen accord: the river in the first week of July. Saddle Room opens with bitter orange and saffron, like the light from a lantern hung on a nail in the tack room. To try them side by side, the Discovery Set holds all six.