Benzyl Acetate
Synthetic Ingredient for Perfumery
Benzyl Acetate, a prevalent component in perfumery, offers a sweet floral and fruity scent, resembling Jasmine and Gardenia. Widely used across various fragrance types, its light, fresh aroma is a key ingredient in Jasmine and Gardenia perfumes. Despite its short-lived scent, its blend with higher esters of Benzyl alcohol and fixatives enhances its durability. Its volatility is advantageous in industrial fragrances.
🏭 Manufacturer — Symrise
📂 CAS N° — 140-11-4
⚖️ MW — 150.17 g/mol
📝 Odor Type — Fruity
📈 Odor Strength — High
👃🏼 Odor Profile — Powerful but “thin”, sweet floral, fresh and light, fruity odor reminiscent of Jasmin, Gardenia, Muguet, Lily and other flowers. Poor tenacity (Arctander)
👅 Flavor Profile — Frequently used in flavor compositions, for imitation Apple, Apricot, Banana, Butter, Cherry, Peach, Pear, Plum, Pineapple, Quince, Raspberry, Strawberry, Violet, etc (Arctander)
⚗️ Uses — Very extensively used in perfumery, from the lowest priced industrial odors to the most highly appreciated cosmetic fragrances, often constituting the main ingredient in a perfume oil. It is almost inevitably the largest component in Jasmin and Gardenia fragrances, and it enters in a multitude of other floral fragrance types in smaller proportions. Its poor tenacity is usually compensated for by proper blending with higher esters of Benzyl alcohol, and with suitable fixatives. In the industrial odors, the volatility of Benzyl- acetate is often only an advantage (Arctander)
WHAT IS BENZYL ACETATE?
Benzyl acetate is an organic ester with the molecular formula C9H10O2. Similar to most other esters, it possesses a sweet and pleasant aroma, owing to which, it finds applications in personal hygiene and health care products. It is a constituent of Jasmin and of the essential oils of ylang-ylang and neroli (Wikipedia)
Found in a dozen essential oils including jasmine, hyacinth, and gardenia (Gildemeister & Hoffman, 1960).
Benzyl Acetate is in public use since the 1900s. It was granted GRAS status by FEMA (1965) and is approved by the FDA for food use (21 CFR 121.1164). The Council of Europe (1970) listed benzyl acetate, giving an ADI of 5 mg/kg. The Food Chemicals Codex (1972) has a monograph on benzyl acetate, and the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (1967) has published a monograph and specification for benzyl acetate, giving an unconditional A D I of 0-5 mg/kg body weight in man.
PRODUCTION
By the interaction of benzyl chloride and sodium acetate or by acetylation of benzyl alcohol.
