Nettle

Green, mineral, and metallic. Not a sweet garden green but a wild, almost aggressive greenness -- the smell of unmanaged nature. A faint iron-like metallic note distinguishes nettle from gentler green materials. The leafy quality is raw and sappy, with a slight aqueous undertone. This is the green of ditches and hedgerows, not of manicured lawns.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is a perennial herb found across temperate regions worldwide, known primarily for its stinging trichomes that inject histamine and formic acid on contact. The plant's scent -- when you get past the sting -- is green, mineral, and faintly metallic, like iron-rich soil mixed with crushed chlorophyll.

Nettle produces no commercial essential oil or absolute. In perfumery, the nettle note is a concept reconstructed from green, mineral, and metallic materials -- cis-3-hexenol (leaf alcohol), violet leaf absolute, galbanum, and metallic accords. The result carries the wild, unloved edges of gardens where nettles grow: damp ditches, hedgerows, forgotten corners.

Despite its hostile reputation, nettle has been used medicinally and culinarily for millennia. Young nettle shoots lose their sting when cooked and taste similar to spinach. The plant is rich in iron, calcium, and vitamins A and C.

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

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Related: Alpha Pinene · Angelica · Angelica Root · Angelica Root Oil · Artemisia · Barrenwort · Beachheather · Behini Tree