Citronellol

Some ingredients are there to do hard-working skincare jobs, and some are there because your cream, shampoo, or body lotion would otherwise smell like a slightly damp lab coat. Citronellol belongs firmly in the second camp. It’s a fragrance ingredient with a soft rose-like smell, and it shows up naturally in several essential oils, especially rose oil and geranium oil. It’s also one of those fragrance materials that turns up a lot on ingredient lists, because perfumers love how it helps give products a fresh, floral, slightly sweet character.

From a chemistry point of view, citronellol is a terpene alcohol, and it can be isolated from natural sources or used in fragrance blends made through other routes. Either way, its purpose is the same: to make the product smell better. And that’s really all it does. It has no known skincare benefits, no anti-aging superpowers, and no magical soothing abilities hiding behind the floral perfume. If a product contains citronellol, it’s there for the scent, not for your skin barrier.

The catch, of course, is that fragrance ingredients can be irritating or allergenic for some people, and citronellol is no exception. It is one of the fragrance allergens that has to be listed in many regions when present above certain levels, because sensitized skin can react to it. In a 2001 worldwide study of 178 people already known to be fragrance-sensitive, 5.6% tested positive for citronellol. That doesn’t mean most people will react to it, but if you have a perfume allergy or your skin gets grumpy around fragranced products, this is one to keep an eye on.

So the short version: citronellol is a common fragrance component with a pretty floral scent, often naturally found in rose and geranium oils, but it can also be a problem if your skin is fragrance-reactive. Nice smell, zero skin benefits, possible allergy trigger — not the most glamorous résumé, but an honest one.

Citronellol is a very common fragrance ingredient with a nice rose-like odor. In the UK, it’s actually the third most often listed perfume on the ingredient lists. 

It can be naturally found in geranium oil (about 30%) or rose oil (about 25%). 

As with all fragrance ingredients, citronellol can also cause allergic contact dermatitis and should be avoided if you have perfume allergy. In a 2001 worldwide study with 178 people with known sensitization to fragrances citronellol tested positive in 5.6% of the cases.

There is no known anti-aging or positive skin benefits of the ingredient. It’s in our products to make it smell nice.