Top note · Spice

Pink Pepper

Schinus molle

Pink pepper is rosy, gently spicy and fresh, with a bright, juicy sparkle. Discover the lively spice that lifts roses and modern woods.

What does pink pepper smell like in perfume?

Pink pepper smells rosy, fresh and gently spicy, with a juicy, almost fizzy sparkle, like crushing a dried pink peppercorn between your fingers. It is softer and fruitier than black pepper, and gives a perfume’s opening a bright, modern lift.

What Is Pink Pepper?

Pink pepper comes from the dried berries of Schinus molle, the Peruvian pepper tree. A close relative, the Brazilian pepper tree (Schinus terebinthifolius), gives the “baies roses” or rose pepper grown in Madagascar and Réunion, and both are sold as pink pepper. For perfume the berries are often extracted with carbon dioxide under pressure, which keeps close to the bright scent of the freshly crushed berry.

Pink Pepper Scent Profile

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

How Perfumers Use Pink Pepper

Perfumers use pink pepper to add sparkle to roses and florals and a fresh, peppery edge to woods. Its rosy, fruity facet makes it a natural partner for rose, berries and geranium, and it brightens darker bases of patchouli and labdanum. Pink pepper became a signature of modern perfumery from the late 1990s, prized for adding lift without the heat of black pepper. It lasts a few hours on a smelling strip, so it colours the opening and early heart.

Not a true pepper

Pink peppercorns belong to the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, while black pepper is the fruit of a climbing vine, Piper nigrum. They only share a name and a peppery bite: black pepper is hot, dry and woody, pink pepper rosy, fruity and fresh.

Growing and harvesting pink pepper

Pink pepper berries grow in clusters on the Peruvian and Brazilian pepper trees. They are picked when they turn pink-red, then dried. For perfume, the dried berries are often extracted with carbon dioxide under pressure, which captures their bright, fresh scent without heat.

The molecules behind pink pepper’s scent

α-Phellandrene gives pink pepper its fresh, peppery, slightly minty bite. Limonene adds a citrus lift and myrcene a green, resinous note. Together they create the fizzy, rosy sparkle that sets pink pepper apart from black pepper.

Natural or synthetic pink pepper?

Many “pink pepper” notes in mainstream perfumes are accords built from fresh, fruity synthetics around a little natural oil. A natural pink pepper extract smells juicier and more resinous, with a berry-like roundness.

Pink pepper in history and tradition

The Peruvian pepper tree grows wild in the Andes, where its berries were traditionally used to make a fermented drink called chicha de molle. The tree was planted widely as a shade tree in California and around the Mediterranean, and in Réunion and Madagascar its relative gives the “baies roses” prized in French cooking. Pink peppercorns became a fashionable kitchen spice in Europe in the 1980s, before perfumers made them a modern signature.

How to smell pink pepper yourself

Find the pink peppercorns in a jar of mixed peppercorns, crush one, and smell it next to a crushed black peppercorn. The pink one is fruity, rosy and fresh; the black one is hotter, drier and woodier.

Smell Pink Pepper in Prosody London Perfumes

For pink pepper at its most expressive, try Rose Rondeaux. Pink pepper CO2 opens the scent beside black pepper, a berry accord and a rum accord, so you can smell the two peppers side by side before the rose heart unfolds.

What Blends Well With Pink Pepper?

Questions About Pink Pepper

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