Amyl salicylate is a synthetic aroma chemical with a soft floral-herbal scent often described as orchid- or clover-like. It belongs to the salicylate family of molecules and adds a sweet, slightly green, sun-warmed floral body to fragrances, from classic fougères to modern solar and white-floral scents.

What does Amyl Salicylate smell like?

Amyl salicylate is gentle rather than loud. It smells floral and herbaceous at the same time, with a hay-like, clover-honey sweetness and a faintly metallic, green edge. Perfumers often link it with the imaginary scent of orchids, since most real orchids used as inspiration have little extractable smell. Compared with its relatives, it is fuller and more herbal than benzyl salicylate, which is almost odourless, and less fruity-green than hexyl salicylate. In a finished perfume it rarely stands out as a named note; instead it rounds and warms the heart, and at higher doses it can recall suntan lotion and summer grass.

Where Amyl Salicylate comes from

Commercial amyl salicylate is made by esterifying salicylic acid with amyl or isoamyl alcohol. The perfumery grade is usually a mixture in which the isoamyl form dominates, and the two are often treated together.

• Also known as: Isoamyl salicylate, pentyl salicylate, orchidée
• Fragrance family: Floral
• Type: Synthetic
• How it's obtained: Esterification of salicylic acid with amyl alcohols
• Key aroma molecules: Amyl and isoamyl salicylate

Amyl Salicylate in perfume history

Amyl salicylate is one of the aroma chemicals that helped move perfumery away from purely natural materials in the late 19th century. It was prominent in L.T. Piver's Trèfle Incarnat (usually dated to the late 1890s), a clover-themed perfume often credited with making good use of the new molecule, alongside isoeugenol, to suggest a flower that could not be distilled. Clover scents became fashionable in its wake, and salicylates went on to become standard building blocks of the fougère and floral families.

Amyl Salicylate in modern perfumery

Today amyl salicylate is an inexpensive, reliable workhorse used mostly behind the scenes in fine fragrance, shampoos, soaps and detergents. Perfumers value it as a blender that ties herbs, flowers and woods together. Its sweet, sunny side has made salicylates a quiet presence in the recent fashion for beachy and sun-cream-inspired perfumes.

How Amyl Salicylate wears and what it pairs with

It behaves as a heart note with reasonable staying power, fading into a soft floral-hay veil on the skin. It works with lavender, coumarin, oakmoss, carnation, ylang-ylang, jasmine, clover and tonka, and with other salicylates in solar accords.

Safety and regulation

Amyl salicylate was added to the EU list of fragrance allergens by Regulation (EU) 2023/1545, so it must be named on cosmetic labels above set thresholds once the transition period ends. IFRA also sets use limits for it.