Heart note · Floral

Linden Blossom

Tilia cordata / Tilia platyphyllos

Linden blossom is honeyed, airy and green, with soft hay-like facets. Discover the summer tree flower that softens florals and chypres.

What does linden blossom smell like in perfume?

Linden blossom smells honeyed, airy and green, like a tree-lined avenue on a warm June evening. It is gentle and luminous, with a soft sweetness that feels nostalgic.

What Is Linden Blossom?

Linden, or lime tree, blossom comes from Tilia trees, which line streets and parks across Europe. The pale yellow flowers bloom in early summer and fill the air with a sweet, honeyed scent. They are also well known as a herbal tea, tilleul.

Linden Blossom Scent Profile

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

How Perfumers Use Linden Blossom

Linden is a rare and delicate material, used to give florals an airy, honeyed glow. It pairs well with citrus, rose and chamomile, and adds a natural sweetness to soft woods.

Growing and harvesting linden blossom

Linden trees, Tilia, flower in early summer, in June and July. The blossom is gathered by hand, and in France and Central Europe a small amount is extracted into an absolute or a CO2 extract. True linden absolute is rare, so it is one of the more precious floral materials.

The molecules behind linden blossom’s scent

Farnesol gives linden its soft, fresh floral character, close to lily of the valley. Linalool adds a light, airy lift, and phenylethyl alcohol a gentle, honeyed rosiness. Together they create the sweet, green scent of a lime tree in flower.

Natural or synthetic linden blossom?

Because the natural material is so rare, most “linden” notes in perfume are reconstructions built from farnesol, lily-of-the-valley-type molecules and honey notes. A natural linden extract smells greener and more hay-like, with a soft, honeyed depth.

Linden blossom in history and tradition

In France linden blossom is dried for tilleul, a herbal tea. In Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, the narrator’s memory of childhood returns when he tastes a madeleine dipped in lime-blossom tea. Berlin’s famous avenue, Unter den Linden, is named after its linden trees. In Britain linden trees are called lime trees, but they are not related to the citrus fruit.

How to smell linden blossom yourself

Walk under a lime tree in a British street or park in late June or July, ideally on a warm evening. The honeyed, green scent drifts a long way, and you will often hear the bees before you smell the flowers.

Smell Linden Blossom in Prosody London Perfumes

For linden blossom at its most expressive, try Lissom Linden. Linden blossom is the heart of this fresh floral, with rose and chamomile, after an opening of jasmine tea and citrus. You will also find linden blossom in Mocha Muscari and Trevi Rose.

What Blends Well With Linden Blossom?

Questions About Linden Blossom

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