Vetiver Terpenes

• 🔎 Botanical Name — Vetiveria Zizanoides

• 📂 CAS N° — 8016-96-4

• 📝 Odor Type — Woody, Earthy.

• 👃🏼 Odor Profile — Woody, Earthy, Humid, Floral, and fruity nuances. Pairs well with grapefruit.
  Vetiver Oil is a versatile ingredient extensively utilized in modern perfumery, revered not only for its role as a fixative but also for its distinctive olfactory contribution. Its aroma enriches a myriad of fragrance bases including fougère, chypre, modern woody-aldehydic, ambre-aldehydic, Oriental, moss and wood notes, opopanax, rose, and more. The scent of vetiver harmonizes seamlessly with a wide array of fragrant elements such as ionones, linalool, cinnamic alcohol, patchouli, sandalwood, oakmoss products, amyl salicylate, lavender, clary sage, mimosa, cassie, opopanax, and isoeugenol.

• ⚗️ Uses — Vetiver Oil is used extensively in perfumery not only as a fixative but also as an odor contributor in bases such as fougère, chypre, modern woody-aldehydic, or Ambre-aldehydic bases, Oriental bases, moss and wood notes, opopanax bases, rose bases, etc. It blends well with ionones, linalool, cinnamic alcohol, patchouli, sandalwood, oakmoss products, amyl salicylate, lavender, clary sage, mimosa, cassie, opopanax, isoeugenol, etc.
  Vetiver Oil serves as a cornerstone for the isolation of Vetiverol and Vetiverone, essential components utilized in perfumery. Vetiverol, derived from the oil, is employed in the production of Vetiveryl Acetate, a coveted ester prized for its faint, fresh-sweet, slightly woody aroma. While the term "Vetiver Acetate" encompasses various commercial products, true vetiveryl acetate stands as a viscous, almost colorless liquid, distinguished by its absence of earthy, grassy, musty, or fungus-like notes. Haitian, Réunion, and Congo vetiver oils are esteemed for their superior quality, particularly in the isolation of Vetiverol, while Indian and Angola oils often boast high concentrations of vetiveryl esters naturally.

What is Vetiver Oil?

Chrysopogon zizanioides, the vetiver, is a species of monocotyledonous plants of the family Poaceae, subfamily Panicoideae, native to India. This species is also known by the scientific names Vetiveria zizanioides or Anatherum zizanioides, Andropogon muricatus or Andropogon squarrosus, names still accepted by some authors but rejected by recent studies.

This herbaceous species is the main species of vetivers.

Olfactive Description:

Woody, earthy, humid, floral, and fruity nuances. Pairs well with grapefruit.

Specific character: Woody-Earthy

The odor is sweet and very heavy woody-earthy, reminiscent of roots and wet soil, with a rich undertone of “precious wood” notes. Oils distilled from too young rootlets and very freshly distilled oils may display some “green” potato-peel-like or asparagus-like top notes. These are not appreciated by the perfumer, but the peculiar top note is exploited in flavor work (see below). There is no definite rule to confirm the saying that dark oils are superior perfume oils, nor that the optical rotation will indicate the quality of the oil. The consumer who wishes to use his vetiver oil for isolation of vetiverol (a mixture of sesquiterpene alcohols in the oil) will soon find out during a test distillation how much vetiverol is in the oil. Vetiverol is responsible for the very faint, but tenacious, suave, and sweet-woody odor, while the Vetiverone (corresponding ketone mixture) seems to lend bitter earthiness—and also tenacity—to the odor of the oil. Esters of vetiverol are still higher boiling and may have very little odor value, but they are excellent fixatives. Only the lower boiling “head fractions” are definitely undesirable from a perfumery point of view. If the oil has been improperly distilled, that is, if the distillation was “pushed” too far at insufficient steam pressure, the oil will usually have poor odor qualities. 

Where it grows:

Although the essential oil of vetiver rootlets apparently is a product of comparatively recent times, the rootlets themselves have been used for their fragrance since antiquity. The parent plant is grass, Vetiveria Zizanoïdes, a tall perennial which originates in India, probably also in Indonesia and Ceylon. The grass grows wild in India, Ceylon, Burma, the Malayan Peninsula, etc., but little essential oil is derived from the wild-growing grass. For the purpose of distilling oil, the grass is cultivated in southern India, Indonesia (particularly in Java), the Malay states, Philippines, Japan, Réunion island, Angola (West Africa), the Belgian Congo, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, British Guiana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Martinique and, on an experimental scale, in many other tropical regions.

Method of Extraction:

Vetiver Oil is steam distilled from cleaned and washed rootlets which are dried, cut, and chopped, then again usually soaked in water prior to distillation. The distillation is undertaken near the place of harvesting with exception of small lots which are distilled in Europe or the U.S.A. from rootlets that have been imported from India, Indonesia, or, very rarely, from Haiti. In the Belgian Congo, the distillation is centralized at one modern distillery in Kivu (eastern province). The cleaned rootlets arrive at this distillery from hundreds of kilometers away. We have no reports of the distillation being abandoned during or after the July 1960 events in Belgian Congo. 

How or when use it:

Vetiver Oil is used extensively in perfumery not only as a fixative but also as an odor contributor in bases such as fougère, chypre, modern woody-aldehydic, or Ambre-aldehydic bases, Oriental bases, moss and wood notes, opopanax bases, rose bases, etc. It blends well with ionones, linalool, cinnamic alcohol, patchouli, sandalwood, oakmoss products, amyl salicylate, lavender, clary sage, mimosa, cassie, opopanax, isoeugenol, etc. 

Appearance:

Vetiver Oil is an amber-colored to grayish brown, olive-brown, or dark brown viscous liquid

Chrysopogon zizanioides, the vetiver, is a species of monocotyledonous plants of the family Poaceae, subfamily Panicoideae, native to India. This species is also known by the scientific names Vetiveria zizanioides or Anatherum zizanioides, Andropogon muricatus or Andropogon squarrosus, names still accepted by some authors but rejected by recent studies.

This herbaceous species is the main species of vetivers.

Chemistry:

The oil also serves for the isolation of Vetiverol and Vetiverone, the former again being used to produce Vetiveryl Acetate. This ester is also produced by direct acetylation of vetiver oil, but the method leads to a much inferior vetiveryl acetate since it is difficult to separate vetiverone and vetiveryl acetate by fractional distillation, and since vetiverone is affected by acetic anhydride in the process. Vetiverone is also used in perfumery. 

“Vetiver Acetate” is a commercial term for acetylated vetiver oil, more or less rectified. True vetiveryl acetate, also known under a number of brand names, is a very viscous, almost colorless liquid of faint, fresh-sweet, slightly woody odor, absolutely free from earthy, grassy, musty, or fungus-like notes. This description, unfortunately, fits very few of the commercial products. Similar comments could be made for guaiac wood oil and guaiyl acetate, Amyris oil and its “acetate”, etc. 

Haiti-, Réunion- and Congo vetiver oils are usually considered best for the isolation of Vetiverol. Indian and Angola oils often have a very high content of vetiveryl esters in their natural state. 

The “foreruns” (“heads” of distillation) from the vacuum distillation of vetiver oil can be used in flavor work. When extracted with weak alcohol or propylene glycol, the foreruns yield an “aroma” (see Aroma, Part One of this work) with a very striking resemblance to asparagus flavor. The taste is not very powerful but resembles asparagus (or certain green peas) to such a degree that this soluble aroma may be used in food preserves (vegetables, etc.) to reinforce the flavor of asparagus.

Adulteration:

Vetiver Oil is occasionally adulterated with oils from roots of other grasses (Cyperus oil), or it may be “cut back” with fractions from the isolation of vetiverol. After arrival in Europe or the U. S. A., Réunion oils may be cut with Haitian oil, Caryophyllene, Cedarwood derivatives, Amyris oil, etc. 

Impact:

Vetiver oil and vetiverol are mostly used as base notes.

Notes:

The grass also serves as a soil protecting plant since its abundant lacework of rootlets will secure the soil on mountainous slopes against excessive erosion during the torrential tropical rains. Vetiver grass has been introduced in many volcanic islands and mountainous tropical countries as a soil protector. In India, several other kinds of grass serve similar purposes, and some of them are simultaneously used for the distillation of perfume oil from the rootlets.

Production:

Réunion and Haiti are the largest producers of vetiver oil with India as a strong third. Most of the East Indian production is absorbed by this huge country’s local soap and perfume industry which is not saturated in any way by the 10 to 25 metric tons of vetiver oil annually produced in India (mainly in northern India). Réunion produces 35 to 48 metric tons annually, while the Haitian production fluctuates (10 to 35 tons) according to the political situation. All other producing areas turn out less than 10 tons each annually. Indonesian production is increasing, and so is the Japanese. Belgian Congo oil is usually dark and maybe slightly turbid but of good quality (high alcohol content, and almost free from green-earthy, “potato-peel”-like top- notes). Angola oils come in two entirely different types: one is quite normal in odor and color, the other is very pale and attractive, grayish-amber colored and of dry-woody, almost Cedar-like odor, reminiscent of certain types of Cyperus oil. The pale Angola vetiver oil is distilled on a new plantation, and another oil, distilled in France from the same root material, has a similar odor and also the same peculiar laevo-rotation (hitherto found only in Indian vetiver oils) as well as very high alcohol + ester content. Thus, a general description of Vetiver Oil is not easy to give. The following suggestions for the use of vetiver oil apply to the “Bourbon type” (Réunion, Congo) and to the Haiti type of oil, totaling about 75% of the world production: The annual world production of all vetiver oil types is about 90 to 130 metric tons. At least 20% of this quantity is tied up for “domestic purposes” in the countries of production (India, Brazil, etc.). 

Sources:

• Fulvio Ciccolo, 2020

• Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin, S. Arctander (1961)

• Chrysopogon zizanioides. (2020, septembre 27). Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Page consultée le 16:45, septembre 27, 2020 à partir de http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chrysopogon_zizanioides&oldid=175085317