Top note · Citrus & fresh

Blood Orange

Citrus sinensis (blood orange)

Blood orange is ripe, tangy and juicy, with a berry-like richness. Discover the deeper, redder side of citrus in fruity florals and chypres.

What does blood orange smell like in perfume?

Blood orange smells like ripe orange with a tangy, berry-tinged richness. It is juicier and darker than sweet orange, bringing colour and depth to the opening of a fragrance.

What Is Blood Orange?

Blood oranges get their crimson flesh from anthocyanins, pigments that develop when cold Sicilian nights follow warm days. The oil is pressed from the peel and carries a fuller, fruitier scent than ordinary orange, with a hint of red berries.

Blood Orange Scent Profile

Here is how strongly each facet of blood orange comes through, from our own smelling-strip notes.

How Perfumers Use Blood Orange

Blood orange adds richness to a citrus opening and leads naturally into fruity and floral hearts. Perfumers often pair it with red fruits, rose or jasmine, where its berry-like nuance links the citrus to the flowers. Like all citrus, it fades within the first hour, so it needs a heart and base to carry it.

Growing and harvesting blood orange

Most blood oranges come from eastern Sicily, on the plain below Mount Etna, where the main varieties are Tarocco, Moro and Sanguinello. Their red flesh needs cold nights and warm days, which is why the Etna slopes suit them so well. The fruit is picked in winter and early spring, and the oil is cold-pressed from the peel, mostly alongside juice making.

The molecules behind blood orange’s scent

Like all orange oils, blood orange oil is mostly limonene, which gives the bright citrus lift. Myrcene adds a soft, slightly green note, and aldehydes such as decanal give the zesty, waxy smell of fresh peel. The berry-like richness comes from the balance of many small traces rather than from one molecule.

Natural or synthetic blood orange?

In mainstream perfumes a “blood orange” note is often sweet orange oil with fruity synthetics added to suggest red berries. Natural blood orange oil is subtler. It smells like a riper, juicier orange with a tangy edge, and like other citrus oils it fades fairly quickly.

Blood orange in history and tradition

Blood oranges have been grown in the Mediterranean for centuries, and Sicily is the heart of their cultivation. The blood orange of Sicily, Arancia Rossa di Sicilia, has a protected name in the European Union. In Sicily the fruit is eaten fresh in winter salads with fennel and olive oil, and its juice is a winter breakfast staple.

How to smell blood orange yourself

Blood oranges are in British shops from about January to March. Scratch the peel of one with your nail and smell it next to an ordinary navel orange. The blood orange is tangier and slightly darker, with a hint of raspberry. Cut it open and the flesh smells sweeter and redder still.

Smell Blood Orange in Prosody London Perfumes

For blood orange at its most expressive, try Berry Blitz. Blood orange sits in the opening with lime, bergamot, pimento and a blueberry accord, so its own berry-like nuance feels right at home. You will also find blood orange in Jacinth Jonquil and Neroli Nuance.

What Blends Well With Blood Orange?

Questions About Blood Orange

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