Lemon EO

Latin name :

Citrus limon

Botanical profile :

The lemon tree is a tree of the Rutaceae family and the Citrus genus.

Geographic origin :

Lemon trees can be found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world but it is mainly cultivated in the USA (California or Florida) as well as around the Mediterranean sea. Sicilian production accounts for more than half of world production. There are also productions in Argentina, Spain, Turkey, China, South Africa and Mexico

Chemotypes :

The genus Citrus includes the vast majority of citrus fruits and includes a large number of varieties available in perfumery:
Bergamot - (Citrus bergamia) is a hybrid of lemon and bitter orange, grown for the essential oil of its fruit and petitgrain.
Bitter orange or bigarade orange - (Citrus aurantium), grown in Spain and Florida.
Citron - (Citrus medica), grown in Italy (Sicily).
Lemon - (Citrus limon), cultured in Italy for the essential oil of its fruit and of its leafy twigs (Petitgrain).
Combava - (Citrus hystrix), grown in Thailand and India.
Lime - (Citrus aurantifolia), grown for its fruit in Mexico for the most part.
Mandarin - (Citrus reticulata), grown mainly in Italy for its fruit and for its petitgrain, by extracting the leaves from the tree. Its hybrid with sweet orange gave birth to clementine.
Orange - (Citrus sinensis) is famous for the cultivation of its fruits, whose juice and essential oil are extracted in Brazil and California in particular, which is the most used of all perfumes.
Grapefruit - (Citrus paradisii) of Malay origin, is cultivated for its essential oil in Brazil and Israel in particular.
Yuzu - (Citrus junos), produced in Japan and Korea.

Extraction process :

Lemon is the fruit of the lemon tree, a thorny tree that is 3 to 8 meters tall with evergreen leaves and white flowers.
The harvest usually takes place between the months of November and May, although it is possible to obtain fruit all year round. The fruits are harvested mechanically before they are washed and sent to a sfumatrice. The machine breaks the zest to collect the essential oil. This oil is driven to a centrifuge by a stream of water and centrifuged twice after the filtration of the residual zest. The zest is collected to be steam distilled during 4 hours. Thus, one oil is obtained by cold press, and another by steaming.
The extraction yield of lemon zest is between 0.3 and 0.5%.
It is also possible to perform a less common hydrodistillation, starting from the fresh peel. For this method, the fruit passes directly into a peeling machine to separate the zest from the pulp and extract the fruit peel only.
The essential oil can be deterpened or desesquiterpened, to increase the intensity (a deterpenation concentrates the essential oil aldehydes) or for regulatory reasons (furocoumarins withdrawal, photosensitizers ...).
The lemon tree is also at the origin of another essential oil, obtained from its leaves, called Petitgrain Lemon EO.

Major Components :

D-Limonene (65-70%)
Beta-Pinene (10-15%)
Gamma-Terpinene (≈10%)
Citral (≈4%)
Myrcene (≈2%)
Sabinene (≈2%)
Géranial (≈1%)