Orange Flower Absolute (Morocco)

Adam Michael has this to say “As soon as you smell Moroccan Orange Flower Absolute you are dazzled by the rich, saturated, intoxicating goddess beauty, a master class in the art of floral olfactory perfection.

The top and heart notes are bursting with tangy bitter oranges, sun soaked heady orange blossoms, golden honey nuances and a garden of deep green warmth throughout, all entwined with a touch of dirtiness that makes it intriguing and addictive, a material with an intense character that will make its presence known in perfume compositions. Its fruity dirtiness also makes this a more masculine – heavier proposition compared to the cleaner, brighter Orange Blossom Absolute Signature Gold but also imparts more sensuality and depth to the composition.

Moroccan orange blossom pairs perfectly with neroli, blends beautifully with champaca, opoponax, roses and countless more aromatics. Also injects Oriental character into amber bases, a must for citrus colognes and chypre compositions, provides pleasing effects when used with jasmine materials and is a great material for rounding off harsh notes.

Moroccan Orange Flower Absolute is rich orangey-red in colour, alcohol soluble, of a thinner viscosity than our Tunisian material and I highly recommend this material to everybody.”

Arctander has this to say “Orange Flower Absolute is used in countless types of perfumes, heavy Oriental as well as light citrus colognes, chypres and ambres as well as floral bouquets, modern aldehydic fantasy blends, etc. The absolute forms excellent combinations with all citrus oils, petitgrain oils, linalool, linalyl acetate, linalyl cinnamate, methyl anthranilate, various jasmones, myrrh resinoid, etc. It naturally forms an important part of the fixative base in high-class citrus colognes and perfumes of similar type.”

The leaves from this tree provide Petitgrain, the fruit peel provides us with Bitter Orange, one tonne of flowers provide roughly 1 kilo of Neroli which is obtained via steam distillation. A by-product follows in the form of Orange Flower Water. And when the Orange Flower Water oil compounds are extracted we get a product known as Orange Flower Water Absolute. If the flowers are solvent extracted we get two further materials – Orange Flower Concrete and Orange Flower Absolute.

Botanical Name: Citrus aurantium var. amara

Origin: Morocco