Spiced honey on warm stone. A Brassicaceae anomaly — cabbage-family flower that smells of thymol, carvacrol, and sun-baked clove, with a sulphurous undertow that keeps it from ever reading sweet.
Warm phenolic spice — thymol-forward, with carvacrol's dry medicinal edge underneath. Less sweet than carnation, less smoky than clove bud, drier than gillyflower. A sulphurous green flash on first approach (dimethyl trisulfide from the living bloom) fades quickly into honeyed warmth. The base is faintly balsamic, with a waxy texture that recalls dried herbs stored in a wooden box.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Sharp phenolic burst — thymol and carvacrol, green-sulphurous flash from dimethyl trisulfide
Wallflower (Erysimum cheiri, syn. Cheiranthus cheiri) belongs to the Brassicaceae — the cabbage family. That botanical kinship makes its intense fragrance an oddity: most crucifers smell vegetal or sulphurous, not honeyed-spicy. The flower's scent profile, analysed by GC-MS, reveals thymol (28%) and carvacrol (22%) as dominant volatiles, with dodecane providing a faint waxy backdrop. Static headspace analysis of the living flower detects dimethyl trisulfide as the single largest volatile component — a sulphur compound absent from the dried extract, responsible for the green-sulphurous edge noticeable only when smelling the bloom on the plant.
The olfactory impressi on is warm, phenolic, and spiced rather than conventionally floral. Thymol lends a thyme-oregano bite; carvacrol reinforces it with a drier, more medicinal quality. The effect is closer to a spice poultice than a bouquet. Underneath, traces of benzyl benzoate and nerolidol contribute a faint balsamic sweetness in the dry-down. The scent is often compared to carnati on, but wallflower is drier, more herbal, less powdery.
True wallflower absolute is commercially rare. The flower yields very little extractable material — estimated at 0.01–0.06% by steam distillation — making large-scale production uneconomical. In practice, perfumers reconstruct the note using isoeugenol, benzyl salicylate, thymol, and honey accords. The reconstruction leans heavier on the spicy-sweet axis, omitting the sulphurous living-flower character that only headspace capture reveals.
Wallflower contains cheiranthin, a cardiac glycoside first isolated in 1899 and found to have cardiotonic properties comparable to digitalis from foxglove. The plant carries at least 11 types of cardenolides across all its organs — seeds, stems, leaves, and flowers — making it a chemically defended members of the Brassicaceae. This toxicity led to its abandonment as a medicinal herb after pharmacological safety studies in the 1930s.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Wallflower absolute is produced by solvent extraction of the flowers, though commercial availability is extremely limited. Steam distillation yields essential oil at 0.01-0.06% — far too low for industrial viability. GC-MS analysis of the oil identifies thymol (28%), carvacrol (22%), and dodecane (11.5%) as principal components, alongside minor amounts of benzyl benzoate and nerolidol. Headspace analysis of living flowers reveals dimethyl trisulfide (66.7%) as the dominant volatile, a compound lost during extraction. Most commercial wallflower oils on the market are blends with other Brassicaceae oils rather than pure E. cheiri extracts.
Molecular Formula
N/A — complex natural extract
CAS Number
N/A — no standard CAS for wallflower absolute
Botanical Name
Erysimum cheiri
IFRA Status
No known restrictions
Synonyms
Cheiranthus, Erysimum
Physical Properties
Odor Strength
Medium
Appearance
brownish orange viscous liquid
In Perfumery
Wallflower functions as a heart-note modifier in spicy-floral and oriental compositions. Its thymol-carvacrol profile bridges aromatic-herbal families (thyme, oregano, marjoram) with warm florals (carnati on, tuberose). In practice, the note is almost always reconstructed: isoeugenol supplies the warm-spicy backbone, benzyl salicylate adds balsamic fixati on, and thymol or carvacrol bring the phenolic bite. Benzyl benzoate serves as both blender and fixative. The reconstructed accord slots into chypre bases, spicy orientals, and fougere-adjacent structures where a warm floral transiti on is needed. No Premiere Peau fragrance currently features wallflower as a listed note, though the thymol-carvacrol axis overlaps with the aromatic-herbal qualities found in some Mediterranean-inspired compositions.
