Strawberry is a sweet, juicy fruit note with a jammy, slightly caramelised warmth, used in gourmand, fruity-floral and playful fragrances. Real strawberries give no usable essential oil, so the note is always recreated synthetically, relying on molecules such as strawberry furanone and the glycidic ester known in the trade as aldehyde C-16.
What does Strawberry smell like?
Strawberry in perfume ranges from fresh-picked, slightly green fruit to strawberry jam, milkshake or sweets. Its signature is a warm, caramel-like sweetness together with a juicy, fruity sharpness and a faintly creamy note. Compared with raspberry, strawberry is less floral and powdery and more sugary and cooked; compared with red fruits in general, it is rounder and more obviously dessert-like.
How perfumers create Strawberry
The classic strawberry material is ethyl methylphenylglycidate, nicknamed aldehyde C-16 even though it is not an aldehyde. Strawberry furanone (furaneol) adds caramelised, jam-like depth, while methyl cinnamate, fruity esters and a touch of green material bring freshness. Lactones can give a creamy, strawberries-and-cream twist.
- Also known as: Fraise, Fragaria × ananassa
- Fragrance family: Fruity, gourmand
- Type: Accord (created by the perfumer)
- How it's obtained: Built from glycidic esters, furanones and fruity esters
- Key aroma molecules: Ethyl methylphenylglycidate (aldehyde C-16), furaneol, methyl cinnamate
Strawberry in perfume history
The garden strawberry is itself a fairly recent invention, arising in eighteenth-century France from a cross between two American wild species. Synthetic strawberry materials were used in flavours and soaps from the early twentieth century, but fine perfumery largely kept strawberry at arm's length, considering it too sweet and childlike. It only became a named note with the rise of fruity-florals and gourmands from the 1990s onwards.
Strawberry in modern perfumery
Strawberry is now common in mainstream youthful fragrances, body sprays and gourmands. Niche perfumers have experimented with greener, wilder takes, recalling wild strawberries or strawberry leaves, and with pairings that tame its sweetness, such as vetiver or smoky tea.
How Strawberry wears and what it pairs with
Strawberry opens as a top note but the furanone facet can linger. It pairs well with vanilla, cream accords, rose, jasmine, pink pepper, mint, basil and musk.
