Home › Glossary › Lemongrass

Lemongrass

Q: Is Lemongrass natural or synthetic?

. Extraction: Steam distillation of fresh or partially dried leaves. Yield: 0.5–1.5% essential oil depending on cultivar, harvest timing, and leaf freshness — the Indian cultivar Krishna achieves 0.8–1.5%, averaging 1.0%. Partially dried grass yields more oil per kilogram than fresh-cut material due to water loss reducing total mass. Distillation time: 2.5–3.0 hours for optimum oil recovery. The oil is pale yellow to amber, darkening with age. Major producers: India (West Bengal, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir), Guatemala, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka. Under irrigated conditions with modern cultivars, yields of 100–150 kg oil per hectare per year are achievable from four to six cuttings. Quality is graded by citral content: standard grade is minimum 75% citral; premium grades reach 85%+. C. flexuosus oil commands a slight premium over C. citratus in perfumery applications due to its higher citral content and lower myrcene..

CITRUS SMELLS / citrus · green · fresh

Lemongrass

Category	CITRUS SMELLS
Subcategory	citrus · green · fresh
Origin
Volatility	Top Note
Botanical	Cymbopogon citratus (West Indian); Cymbopogon flexuosus (East Indian, preferred in perfumery)
Appearance	Pale yellow to yellow clear liquid
Odor Strength	Medium
Producing Countries	China, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand
Pyramid	Top

Citral on a stalk. Sharper than lemon, greener than verbena, with a waxy-soapy undertone that real citrus lacks. Not the scent of lemon — the scent of the chemical that makes lemon smell like lemon, delivered at 75% concentration in a blade of tropical grass.

Scent
Terroir & Origins
The Full Story
Fun Fact
Extraction & Chemistry
In Perfumery

Scent

Sharp, green-citrus, herbal, with a soapy-waxy undertone. More aggressive and angular than lemon peel, less sweet than bergamot, without the floral lift of linalool-rich citrus oils. The citral dominance makes it immediately legible — almost aggressively lemony, but rooted in grass rather than fruit. At lower doses, a softer, tea-like aspect emerges, closer to lemon verbena. The beta-myrcene fraction adds a faint peppery-balsamic note at the margins. Compared to litsea cubeba (also citral-heavy), lemongrass is drier, grassier, less fruity. Compared to isolated citral, the oil has a rounder, slightly herbaceous body. Not a delicate material — more functional than ornamental.

Evolution over time

Immediately

Sharp, aggressive citral blast — intensely lemony, green, grassy. Angular and bright, almost chemical in its directness. A raw, herbal citrus that fills the room.

After a few hours

The sharp citral edge burns off quickly (high volatility). A greener, softer, herbaceous-waxy character emerges — tea-like, slightly soapy, closer to verbena than to lemon. The beta-myrcene peppery note becomes perceptible.

After a few days

Limited persistence on skin — citral's volatility means 2–4 hours of perceptible scent. On fabric, a faint waxy-green residue may linger. What remains is not lemony but quietly herbaceous, like dried grass.

Terroir & Expressions

Indicative 2025 wholesale prices.

The Full Story

Lemongrass is the steam-distilled essential oil of two related Cymbopogon species: Cymbopogon citratus (West Indian lemongrass) and Cymbopogon flexuosus (East Indian lemongrass, also called Cochin lemongrass). The two share the same citral-dominant chemistry but differ in subtle profile — Cochin is more refined and citral-richer (typically 70–85% citral), West Indian carries more myrcene and a slightly greener-grassier character.

This note in Première Peau. Gravitas Capitale. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.

Chemistry

Citral (CAS 5392-40-5, the mixed geranial + neral isomers) [A] dominates lemongrass oil — often 70–85% of the steam distillate, the highest natural citral concentration of any commercially distilled oil. Lemongrass is therefore one of the principal industrial sources of citral, used as a starting material for synthesising ionones, vitamin A and other terpene-derived chemistry. IFRA QRA limits apply to lemongrass oil in leave-on products due to citral sensitisation.

Sources & Notes

[A] PubChem CID 638011 — citral (geranial + neral), CAS 5392-40-5. Dominant constituent of lemongrass oil at 70–85%. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/638011.

Did You Know?

Did you know?

In 1893, Ferdinand Tiemann and Paul Krüger discovered that citral — lemongrass oil's dominant compound — reacts with acetone to form ionone, the molecule that smells like violets. This single reaction, run in a flask with dilute alkali, collapsed the price of violet scent from an aristocratic luxury to an industrial commodity. Fifty-five years later, the same chemistry provided the starting material for the first kilogram-scale synthesis of vitamin A at Hoffmann-La Roche (1948). The molecule in your lemongrass tea is two chemical steps from the vitamin in your multivitamin.

Extraction & Chemistry

Extraction method: Steam distillation of fresh or partially dried leaves. Yield: 0.5–1.5% essential oil depending on cultivar, harvest timing, and leaf freshness — the Indian cultivar Krishna achieves 0.8–1.5%, averaging 1.0%. Partially dried grass yields more oil per kilogram than fresh-cut material due to water loss reducing total mass. Distillation time: 2.5–3.0 hours for optimum oil recovery. The oil is pale yellow to amber, darkening with age. Major producers: India (West Bengal, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir), Guatemala, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka. Under irrigated conditions with modern cultivars, yields of 100–150 kg oil per hectare per year are achievable from four to six cuttings. Quality is graded by citral content: standard grade is minimum 75% citral; premium grades reach 85%+. C. flexuosus oil commands a slight premium over C. citratus in perfumery applications due to its higher citral content and lower myrcene.

↑ See Terroir & Origins for origin-specific methods.

Molecular Formula	Complex mixture; main component: citral (C₁₀H₁₆O, 65–85%: geranial + neral)
CAS Number	8007-02-1
Botanical Name	Cymbopogon citratus (West Indian); Cymbopogon flexuosus (East Indian, preferred in perfumery)
IFRA Status	Restricted — IFRA critical effect: sensitization. Maximum 10% in fragrance concentrate. Contains citral (73%, EU-26 declared allergen), geraniol (3.8%), citronellol (0.6%), eugenol (0.2%), isoeugenol (0.5%). Citral must be labeled on product when exceeding 0.001% in leave-on products, 0.01% in rinse-off products.
Synonyms	CITRONELLA GRASS · LEMONGRASS OIL
Physical Properties
Odor Strength	Medium
Lasting Power	92 hours at 100.00%
Appearance	Pale yellow to yellow clear liquid
Boiling Point	224.00 °C. @ 760.00 mm Hg
Flash Point	> 197.00 °F. TCC ( > 91.67 °C. )
Specific Gravity	0.88700 to 0.89900 @ 25.00 °C.
Refractive Index	1.47800 to 1.49700 @ 20.00 °C.

In Perfumery

Top-note modifier providing sharp citrus-green freshness. In fine perfumery, lemongrass is used sparingly — a flash of herbal citrus at the opening of fresh, green, or aromatic compositions. Its chief limitation is concentration-dependent skin sensitization from citral (an EU-26 declared allergen), which restricts dosage in leave-on formulas. C. flexuosus (East Indian) is preferred over C. citratus in fragrance work due to superior alcohol solubility and lower myrcene content. Functional fragrances — soaps, candles, cleaning products — consume more lemongrass oil than fine perfumery, valuing its affordability and aggressive diffusion. The oil blends with ginger, geranium, vetiver, cedarwood, and mint. Its functional role is as a natural citral source for building green-citrus accords that are greener and more herbal than lemon or bergamot. Not a fixative — citral is volatile (MW 152.23, boiling point 229°C for geranial). No Première Peau fragrance currently features lemongrass as a listed note.