Material guide · 75
Material guide: para-anisaldehyde — a third of cassie absolute, and studied as a citrus anti-mould agent
· 22 min read
CAS 123-11-5. Ninety suppliers, among the highest this series has covered. It appears in 60 of 954 formulas at a median dose of 2.25%. Its occurrence field carries an unusual figure: cassie absolute at 34.36% — a third of a natural absolute is this one molecule. In food science it plays a different role: a 2019 study found minimum inhibitory and fungicidal concentrations of 2.00 μl/ml against the two Penicillium species responsible for about 90% of citrus losses after harvest, by disrupting cell wall integrity and membrane permeability.
One number from the occurrence field first.
cassie absolute @ 34.36%
A third of a natural absolute is one molecule.
This series has measured plenty of "how much of this natural is that material", and above thirty percent is a very high share. A jasmine absolute holds 121 compounds, none of them anywhere near this.
The short version
- CAS 123-11-5, 90 suppliers — among the highest counts in this series.
- It appears in 60 of 954 formulas (6.3%) at a median dose of 2.25%, heaviest single formula 10.00%.
- It spans 11 of 14 genres, with florals at 50.8% — against a baseline of 35.4% it leans floral, though nowhere near phenylacetaldehyde's 66.1%.
- The odour field is long and straddles two worlds: sweet, powdery, mimosa, floral, hawthorn, balsamic, vanilla, anise, woody, coumarinic, creamy, spicy.
- Cassie absolute at 34.36% in the occurrence field, alongside star anise, aniseed, cinnamon and basil.
- In food science it is an antifungal. A 2019 study found minimum inhibitory and minimum fungicidal concentrations both at 2.00 μl/ml against Penicillium digitatum and P. italicum — the two pathogens causing roughly 90% of citrus losses after harvest — by disrupting cell wall integrity and membrane permeability.
- Substantivity is only 44 hours at 100%, with a 12-month shelf life.
About 8 minutes.
That 34%
Cassie absolute is an expensive natural, from the flowers of Acacia farnesiana. The database records this molecule at 34.36% of it.
That has a direct consequence for buying.
Buy a bottle of cassie absolute and a third of what you get is a synthetic that ninety suppliers sell. Which does not mean the absolute is not worth buying — the other two-thirds are what you are paying for — but it changes how you build a cassie direction.
The same judgement as the jasmine piece: if what you want is the direction, this gives you a large part of it; if what you want is the absolute's complexity, that 34% cannot supply it.
The occurrence field runs long: star anise oil, aniseed oil, cinnamon, basil, a Boswellia species, cassie. It is the anise family's smell, and it is also a lead in a floral absolute.
The odour field reaches further still: sweet, powdery, mimosa, floral, hawthorn, balsamic, vanilla, anise, woody, coumarinic, creamy, spicy.
Hawthorn and anise in the same cell explains why it is awkward to use. It pulls toward powdery floral, toward spice, and toward vanilla, all at once.
Where it sits in the corpus
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Appearances | 60 / 954 (6.3%) |
| Median dose | 2.25% |
| Heaviest formula | 10.00% |
| Suppliers | 90 |
| Genre breadth | 11/14 |
| Largest genre | floral 50.8% (baseline 35.4%) |
Ninety suppliers against sixty formulas is a combination worth noticing.
The workhorses spanning all fourteen genres — patchouli oil, bergamot, vanillin — also carry high supplier counts. This material's supplier count matches theirs while its formula count is under half of theirs, and it leans floral.
That is the shape of "the flavour industry buys it too". Its uses field reads "flavor and fragrance agents", and its regulatory listings are JECFA, FEMA GRAS, CoE and FLAVIS. Some part of those ninety suppliers is selling into food.
Another field studies it as something else
This is the most interesting thing about the material.
Che and colleagues, in the Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology in 2019, were working on a question unrelated to perfume:
Penicillium digitatum and P. italicum are the two important postharvest pathogens in citrus, causing about 90% of the total loss of citrus fruit during storage and transportation.
Ninety percent. And they were looking for natural fungicides to replace chemical ones.
The result:
p-Anisaldehyde exhibited a strong inhibitory effect on P. digitatum and P. italicum, with the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum fungicidal concentration values of both being 2.00 μl/ml.
And on actual fruit:
p-Anisaldehyde visibly inhibited both the green mold and blue mold development of citrus fruits inoculated with P. digitatum and P. italicum.
The mechanism section is explicit too:
The mycelia morphologies of these pathogens were greatly altered, and the membrane permeability and cell wall integrity of mycelia were severely disrupted under p-anisaldehyde treatment. … The antifungal activity can be attributed to the disruption of the cell wall integrity.
One molecule: hawthorn and powdery florals in a perfume, an anti-mould treatment in a citrus warehouse.
Nor is it only fungi. Adewunmi and colleagues studied the antimicrobial activity of, and cellular pathways targeted by, p-anisaldehyde and epigallocatechin gallate in the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Applied and Environmental Microbiology in 2020.
Does any of this bear on your formula?
Probably not, and the reason should be spelled out. 2.00 μl/ml is 0.2% by volume, in direct contact with the organism. In your formula it is 2.25% of a concentrate, about 0.45% in a finished product, sitting on skin, in ethanol, evaporating.
The value of this section is not what it lets you do. It is a reminder that fragrance molecules have literatures in other fields. The same pattern as dimethyl sulfide, which has a whole marine-ecology literature. Searching only within perfumery misses half of what is known about a material.
Physical properties
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| CAS | 123-11-5 |
| Formula | C₈H₈O₂, MW 136.15 |
| Appearance | colourless to pale yellow clear oily liquid (est) |
| Boiling point | 248-249 °C |
| Melting point | −1 °C |
| Flash point | 108.9 °C |
| logP | 1.80 (est) |
| Water solubility | 4,290 mg/L at 25 °C (experimental) |
| Substantivity | 44 hours at 100% |
| Strength | medium |
| Shelf life | 12 months or longer |
| Suppliers | 90 |
| Regulatory listings | JECFA, FEMA GRAS, CoE, FLAVIS |
| GHS | H302, H313, H316 |
Forty-four hours is short for this series — far short of phenylacetaldehyde's 400 and isoeugenol's 400. This does not carry a drydown.
A 12-month shelf life. Like other aldehydes it oxidises, in this case to p-anisic acid. An old bottle turns acidic and can throw crystals.
The 4,290 mg/L water solubility is an experimental value, high for a fragrance material, though well short of phenethyl alcohol's 22,000. It will go into a water-containing product.
The GHS entries are comparatively mild: H302 (harmful if swallowed), H313 (may be harmful in contact with skin), H316 (causes mild skin irritation). No H317 sensitisation — uncommon among the materials this series has covered lately.
What this doesn't establish
I have not smelled it. The whole piece sets database fields, the formula corpus and two papers against each other.
"Cassie absolute at 34.36%" is a number in the database's occurrence field, with no primary source attached. Those figures usually come from a single analysis, and a natural absolute's composition shifts with origin, year and extraction method. We covered the same problem in the jasmine piece. Treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a specification.
Che's paper is postharvest citrus pathology, using in vitro tests and inoculated fruit. That is not perfume, not skin and not an ethanol solution. The 2.00 μl/ml is a concentration in direct contact with the pathogen and cannot be read as anything about a formula.
I read only the first part of Adewunmi's abstract. I cite the scope stated in its title — antimicrobial activity and the cellular pathways targeted — and no numerical results.
"Searching only within perfumery misses half" is my advice, not those papers' conclusion.
The breadth method and its limits are in the workhorse piece. With 60 formulas, part of that 11/14 may be sample size.
"Some of those ninety suppliers sell into food" is inference. The database does not record use separately; I read it off the regulatory listings.
The GHS classification is what the database records, not a complete regulatory determination. Work from the SDS for your own batch and the current IFRA standard.
References
J. Che, X. Chen, Q. Ouyang, N. Tao, p-Anisaldehyde Exerts Its Antifungal Activity Against Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium italicum by Disrupting the Cell Wall Integrity and Membrane Permeability, Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, 30(6), 878-884 (2019). PMID 32160698. doi:10.4014/jmb.1911.11032
Y. Adewunmi, S. Namjilsuren, W. D. Walker, et al., Antimicrobial Activity of, and Cellular Pathways Targeted by, p-Anisaldehyde and Epigallocatechin Gallate in the Opportunistic Human Pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 86(4), e02482-19 (2020). PMID 31811038. doi:10.1128/AEM.02482-19
Related: a supplier listed five jasmines, dimethyl sulfide, what makes a workhorse, the starter palette map.