Material guide: Aldehyde C-16 — not an aldehyde, not sixteen carbons, and not in strawberries

About a 5 minute read.

The short version

• Name: the database's official name is strawberry glycidate 1 (aldehyde C-16 (so-called)), and its head_synonym is the chemical name ethyl methylphenylglycidate, CAS 77-83-8
• C12H14O3, molecular weight 206.24, 63 suppliers
• Odour type fruity; odour: sweet, fruity, strawberry, floral, honey, fatty
• Medium strength (rank 2), substantivity 241 hours
• Not an aldehyde, not sixteen carbons, and its occurrence field reads not found in nature
• Storage calls for refrigeration (only 11.8% of the database does), shelf life 12 months
• 35 formulas in the corpus at a median dose of 1.43%; 24 of them (69%) also contain aldehyde C-14

Three names, three claims

This material's name field is a small essay on its own:

name          : strawberry glycidate 1 (aldehyde C-16 (so-called))
head_synonym  : ethyl methylphenylglycidate

The (so-called) is the database's own addition. I built the full C-number lookup table last round: C-6 through C-12 carry no such marker, and only C-14, C-16 and C-18 do, because only those three are wrong.

What is wrong:

What the name implies	What it is
An aldehyde	A glycidate, which is an epoxy ester
Sixteen carbons	Twelve carbons (C12H14O3)
(called strawberry aldehyde)	Strawberries do not contain it

The third is the most interesting. The occurrence field holds one line: not found in nature.

The most famous strawberry material in perfumery does not exist in strawberries.

The three-membered ring sets how you store it

The storage field says:

Refrigerate in tightly sealed containers.

Of the 1,232 materials carrying storage instructions, only 145 (11.8%) ask for refrigeration. Its shelf_life reads 12 months where most materials read 24.

The reason is likely structural. At the centre of a glycidate sits a three-membered epoxide ring, and three-membered rings carry angle strain: a famously unstable functional group that opens readily to acid, water or heat.

I have measured which materials get told to refrigerate, and that group was dominated by acids. This one runs on a different mechanism: not oxidation, but ring opening.

In practice, this is the bottle to use up first, and not to leave under the lamp on your bench.

Both papers put the wrong name in the title

In 1978 and 1981 the same group at BIBRA in the UK ran two toxicology studies specifically on it:

• Mason and colleagues, on purity and short-term toxicity (PMID 711053)
• Dunnington and colleagues, a long-term study in the rat (PMID 7327470)

Both titles read ethyl methylphenylglycidate (strawberry aldehyde).

The wrong name is not confined to fragrance suppliers' catalogues; it has entered the peer-reviewed toxicology literature. This does not start with the database. It is an industry-wide convention.

Incidentally, its structure_class is III: Cramer class III, the highest-concern of the three (of the 2,174 materials carrying that field, 335 or 15.4% are class III). It still holds FEMA GRAS (2444) and JECFA (1577). A high class does not mean unusable; it means more data is needed to evaluate it.

It almost never appears alone

Most frequent company across the 35 formulas:

Material	Count		Material	Count
dipg (solvent)	24		linalyl acetate	10
benzyl acetate	15		raspberry ketone	10
phenethyl alcohol	13		ethyl acetate	9
gamma-undecalactone	12		ethyl acetoacetate	9
aldehyde c-14	12		ethyl butyrate	9

gamma-undecalactone and aldehyde c-14 are two spellings of the same material, and no formula uses both, so those two rows add: 24 of the 35 contain C-14, or 69%.

Put another way, if you are building a strawberry, C-16 and C-14 come as a pair. C-16 supplies the sweet fruity "strawberry candy" and C-14 (gamma-undecalactone) supplies the round peach-and-cream floor beneath it. Add raspberry ketone (10) and a few ethyl esters and you have the standard red-berry skeleton.

The median dose is 1.43%, with quartiles from 0.50% to 6.25% and a maximum of 30%. That interquartile spread is wide: sometimes a modifier, sometimes the lead.

What it smells like

Three evaluations are on file:

Sweet, fruity strawberry-like with floral honey undertones.

Fruity, strawberry, powerful. Apart from the obvious utilisation in strawberry compounds, this product is useful in a variety of florals.

The taste field was evaluated at 50 ppm: sweet, berry, strawberry, fruity, tutti frutti, floral.

"Tutti frutti" is the word that lands. It does not smell like a strawberry you eat; it smells like strawberry-flavoured candy. Which follows, given that strawberries do not contain it.

What this doesn't establish

• I still do not know where the number 16 comes from. As with the last article, I could not find a primary source to cite.
• The ring-opening explanation is my inference. The database says refrigerate and twelve months; it does not say why. Three-membered ring strain is a general principle, not a measurement of this material.
• I did not verify not found in nature. I am citing the field.
• The Cramer class III note describes the classification scheme, not a risk assessment of this material. For actual usage limits, go to IFRA and the applicable regulations.
• The 69% comes from 35 formulas. Small sample; do not read it as industry practice.
• I did not read either toxicology paper in full. I am citing their titles and the fact that they exist. The point I am making is about naming, not about toxicology.