FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS / fruity · floral · rosy
Lychee
Category
FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS
Subcategory
fruity · floral · rosy
Origin
Volatility
Top Note
Botanical
Litchi chinensis
Appearance
Pale yellow to colorless clear liquid (extract/absolute)
Odor Strength
Medium
Producing Countries
China, India, Madagascar, Thailand, Vietnam
Pyramid
Top
Peeled, cold, wet — a fruit that smells like a rose from the inside. Lychee and Rosa damascena share cis-rose oxide (CAS 16409-43-1), a terpene that produces their common green-metallic brightness. The result is a note that sits exactly on the fault line between fruit and flower.
Cold, translucent, rose-metallic. Peel back the rind and the first impression is green-bright — cis-rose oxide sharpness, the same flash you get from a Bulgarian rose otto before it softens. Then the fruit arrives: dewy, almost aqueous sweetness, thinner than peach, less tart than pomegranate, less dense than mango. There is a faint savory shadow beneath — sulfur traces that read as minerality rather than funk. The overall effect is closer to a white floral soaked in cold water than to a tropical fruit. No lactonic cream. No acid bite. A glassy, rose-adjacent transparency that evaporates clean.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Sharp green-metallic brightness from cis-rose oxide, cool translucent sweetness, a flash of dewy fruit esters
After a few hours
After a few hours
Rose-fruit fusion stabilizes, the metallic edge softens, beta-damascenone adds a plummy warmth, faint waxy undertone emerges
After a few days
After a few days
Barely perceptible rosy-sweet residue, almost indistinguishable from a light rose drydown — the fruit character has fully evaporated
The Full Story
Lychee — crystalline, transparent, faintly rose-adjacent — is used in Première Peau's Rose Monotone to refract rose oxide and Brazilian pink pepper.
Lychee (Litchi chinensis) is a molecular anomaly among fruits. Its character-impact compound, cis-rose oxide (CAS 16409-43-1), is shared with Rosa damascena — the same green-metallic terpene that opens a fine rose absolute. This is not a superficial resemblance. A 2009 study of nine litchi cultivars from Guangdong province found cis-rose oxide consistently registering the highest odor activity value (OAV) across nearly all varieties, ahead of geraniol, linalool, and every ester present. The overlap is structural, not incidental.
Native to the damp woodlands of southern China — Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan, and Yunnan — the lychee tree (Sapindaceae, sole member of genus Litchi) produces fruit with a rough reddish rind and translucent, gelatinous flesh. The aroma resides in the flesh: floral, cool, glassy. Unlike mango or passionfruit, lychee lacks the lactonic heaviness of stone fruits. But it is not entirely clean — GC-MS studies identify eight sulfur volatiles in the fruit, including dimethyl trisulfide and methional (which, in one cultivar, registered the highest flavor dilution factor of 1024). These sulfur traces add a faint savory undertone that distinguishes real lychee from the simplified perfumery accord.
No commercial natural lychee extract exists for perfumery. The note is a synthetic accord built from rose-family terpenes (cis-rose oxide, citronellol, geraniol), linalool, beta-damascenone (CAS 23696-85-7) for rosy depth, fruit esters for juiciness, and occasional traces of dimethyl trisulfide for naturalistic complexity. Headspace analysis of fresh lychee flesh — typically via solid-phase microextraction — provides the target profile. The result is a fruity-floral bridge that provides rosy transparency without weight.
In the Première Peau collection, lychee appears in Rose Monotone, where its crystalline fruitiness amplifies the cooler, mineral quality of the rose accord.
In a 2009 GC-MS study of nine litchi cultivars from southern China, cis-rose oxide consistently showed the highest odor activity value (OAV) across nearly all varieties — higher than linalool, geraniol, or any ester. The same molecule drives the aroma of Gewürztraminer wine, which is why sommeliers routinely describe that grape as 'lychee-scented.'
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: No commercial natural lychee extract exists for perfumery. The fruit's aroma compounds are too dilute and volatile to survive steam distillation or solvent extraction economically. The perfumery note is a fully synthetic accord. Its construction begins with headspace analysis (solid-phase microextraction / GC-MS) of fresh lychee flesh to map the target volatile profile. The accord is then assembled from cis-rose oxide, citronellol, geraniol, linalool, beta-damascenone, selected fruit esters, and trace sulfur compounds (dimethyl trisulfide). The balance between rose terpenes and sulfur traces determines whether the result reads as 'rose-fruit' or 'tropical fruit.'
Molecular Formula
C₁₀H₁₈O (Linalool) · C₁₀H₁₈O (Cis-rose oxide, key character impact)
No restriction on primary lychee accord components
Synonyms
LITCHI · LICHEE · LITCHEE · LEECHEE
Physical Properties
Odor Strength
Medium
Appearance
Pale yellow to colorless clear liquid (extract/absolute)
Boiling Point
239.00 to 241.00 °C. @ 760.00 mm Hg
Flash Point
169.00 °F. TCC ( 76.11 °C. )
Specific Gravity
0.96410 to 1.01410 @ 25.00 °C.
Refractive Index
1.33370 to 1.34170 @ 20.00 °C.
In Perfumery
Top-to-heart bridge note. Lychee functions as a transparency modifier: it adds rosy fruitiness without the lactonic weight of peach, the acidity of citrus, or the sulfurous density of blackcurrant. Its value lies in its molecular kinship with rose — cis-rose oxide (CAS 16409-43-1) is shared between lychee flesh and Rosa damascena, so the note integrates into rose accords without seam. No commercial natural extract exists. The perfumery note is a synthetic accord assembled from cis-rose oxide, citronellol, geraniol, beta-damascenone (CAS 23696-85-7) for depth, fruit esters for juiciness, and occasional traces of dimethyl trisulfide for naturalistic rawness. Headspace analysis of fresh lychee flesh provides the reconstruction target. The note lifts floral hearts — particularly rose, peony, and magnolia — and bridges citrus top notes into mid-composition without heaviness. Featured in Première Peau's Rose Monotone (/products/rose-monotone-crystalline-lychee-perfume), where it anchors the crystalline-fruity quality of the composition alongside a mineral rose accord.
