Material guide: lavandin oil — three records define themselves with the same sentence and get different CAS numbers and different odour types

About a 5 minute read.

The short version

• Name: lavandin oil, FEMA 2618; the database holds three main records
• It is a hybrid: true lavender × spike lavender, and it did not exist before the late 1920s
• Odour type: one record says floral, another says herbal; what they share is camphoraceous and soapy
• Strength medium (rank 2); substantivity 216 hours
• Suppliers: grosso 66 / lavandin oil 51 / abrialis 36
• Linalool content in the literature runs from 34% to 66%

The three records first

	grosso #21892	lavandin oil #21881	abrialis #21889
Suppliers	66	51	36
CAS	8022-15-9	8022-18-2	8022-15-9
FEMA	2618	2618	2618
Cultivar per synonym field	hybrida grosso	hybrida var. abrial	hybrida var. abrial
Odour type	floral	floral	herbal
Odour	fresh, algae, lavender, herbal	floral, herbal, lavender, camphoreous, soapy	herbal, spicy, camphoreous, soapy, floral, balsamic, woody, algae
Substantivity	— (empty)	216 hours	216 hours
Specific gravity	— (empty)	0.889–0.910	0.889–0.910

Look at the middle two columns. lavandin oil's synonym field says it is var. abrial, and sitting right beside it is a record called abrialis lavandin oil whose synonym field is the same sentence, word for word.

Two records define themselves identically, share identical physical properties, and yet carry different CAS numbers — and one is typed floral while the other is typed herbal.

The CAS grouping does not line up with the names either: 8022-15-9 covers grosso and abrialis, while the record that calls itself abrial is 8022-18-2.

This is the cleanest example of the phenomenon from last time — FEMA number, CAS, name and synonym field, four ways of identifying a material, contradicting each other inside one family.

This oil was made by people

The notes field gives its history:

The story of Lavandin Oil is one of tremendous success. Unknown until the late 1920's, this essential oil today ranges among the world's 10 largest perfume oils from nature. Lavandin is a hybrid plant, developed by crossing the true lavender plant (Lavandula officinalis) with the aspic or spike lavender. The resulting plant is called Lavandula hybrida and it exists in a great number of forms, a few of which are distinctly more interesting than the others.

"A great number of forms" is where the table above comes from. Grosso, abrial, super, sumian — each a clonally propagated line.

Hybrids like this are generally sterile and propagated by cuttings — so one cultivar is a genetically identical field stretching to the horizon, while two cultivars can differ a great deal.

(The grosso record's notes fills in the other half of the cross: lavandula hybrida = lavandula officinalis + lavandula latifolia. Latifolia is spike lavender, and it carries camphor — which is where the odour field's "camphoraceous" comes from, and the clearest line between this and true lavender.)

How much cultivars differ: 40% to 66%

D'Addabbo and colleagues measured three lavandin cultivars (Abrialis, Rinaldi Cerioni, Sumiens) by GC-FID and GC-MS in Molecules in 2021:

Component	Rinaldi Cerioni	Sumiens	Abrialis
Linalool	~66%	~48%	~40%
Linalyl acetate	—	14.9%	18.3%
Camphor	11.5%	—	—
1,8-cineole	—	12.1%	—

Three cultivars of one hybrid, and linalool spans 40% to 66% — 26 percentage points.

And Kamali and colleagues, using pressurized fluid extraction in 2012, measured a different profile again: linalool 34.1%, linalyl acetate 30.5%, 1,8-cineole 8.1%, camphor 7.3%.

Between the two papers, linalool runs from 34.1% to 66%.

And all three records share FEMA 2618. Last time I wrote that a FEMA number answers "may this go into food," not "what is this" — this is what that costs.

(Note the two papers used different extractions: D'Addabbo measured essential oil, Kamali pressurized fluid extraction. Method affects composition, so 34.1% cannot be placed directly alongside 40%.)

There is a contamination in the notes field

The notes field of lavandin oil #21881 ends:

tsca definition 2008: extractives and their physically modified derivatives. convolvulus scoparius, convolvulaceae.

Convolvulus scoparius is a bindweed (the Canary Islands "rosewood"), with no relationship to lavender whatsoever. That TSCA definition belongs to a different material and has been pasted onto this record.

Compare the same field on the grosso record, which correctly reads lavandula hybrida = lavandula officinalis + lavandula latifolia, labiatae.

This is the fourth field contamination I have collected in this series — the earlier three being veramoss's "not found in nature" (wrong), ambrein's "sperm blue whale," and the marketing copy appended to rhodinol's toxicity field.

Read the notes field assuming it may contain another record's content.

"Algae" and "soapy" in the odour fields

Two of the three records carry algae in the odour field — grosso and abrialis. I noted how uncommon that descriptor is when writing up treemoss.

And soapy appears on lavandin oil and abrialis.

"Soapy" is not a fault here, it is the job. Lavandin yields far more oil than true lavender and costs much less, and its camphor lets it survive an alkaline environment — it is the backbone of detergent and soap fragrance, and that "soap smell" is because it has been in the soap you have smelled your whole life.

How to use it

• It is not cheap lavender. Camphor and cineole make it sharper and more clean-smelling; true lavender is sweeter and softer.
• Specify the cultivar when you buy. Grosso and abrial are different things, and neither CAS nor FEMA will tell them apart.
• Substantivity 216 hours, medium strength — it survives functional fragrance conditions.
• Camphor content is the specification that matters. One cultivar in the table above is 11.5% and another is near zero, and your formula will feel the difference.
• Oral LD50 > 5000 mg/kg (1976) — acute toxicity is not its problem. Checking IFRA's linalool and linalyl acetate limits is.

What this doesn't establish

• I have not smelled any of the cultivars. This is fields, whole-database statistics, and two papers.
• Neither paper was written for perfumery — D'Addabbo measured nematicidal activity, Kamali optimised extraction conditions. I cite only their composition data.
• The two used different extractions, so 34.1% cannot be lined up directly against 40–66%.
• "lavandin oil and abrialis are the same thing" is inferred from the synonym field's wording; I cannot confirm why the database gave them different CAS numbers.
• I judged the TSCA line to be a paste error, but I did not check the TSCA inventory for what sits under 8022-18-2.
• "Backbone of soap fragrance" is industry common knowledge, with no usage data behind it here.
• I did not check the IFRA text.