BERGAMOT ESS. FRC 100% NAT.OIL (Calabria) – citrus, fresh and floral essential oil with hints of green tea, white flowers and sweet peel

Bergamot is a subspecies of the bitter orange. It gets its name from the appearance of its fruit, which resembles the bergamot pear. The main growing areas are southern Italy (Calabria) and Sicily. Other oil production centers are the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire and Brazil. The oil is obtained by pressing the fruit, followed by separation of the aqueous phase, filtration, and purification. Sometimes the pulp is steam distilled to obtain the distilled oil. The oil is yellow-green in color with a fruity, sweet aroma.
It has a full and very bright, citrus-floral aroma, like a fresh breeze, with a green and bitter-citric aftertaste, sugary notes, pure, penetrating, sparkling and refreshing.
Bergamot originated from a cross between bitter orange and lemon, and was likely brought to Europe by Crusaders returning from the East. Bergamot first appeared in a cologne formula in 1750. Since then, its cultivation has developed in Calabria, becoming a signature product of the brand. Bergamot is used everywhere, in all women's and men's perfumes. It gives compositions a fresh, sparkling, and sunny boost. It contains linalyl acetate and linalool, which give it a pleasant floral nuance.
The tree grows up to a height of 5 meters.
Growing bergamot requires special conditions. It cannot tolerate frost or temperatures below 3°C. The delicate flowers struggle to withstand spring winds. Drought and heat in July and August cause the small, unripe fruits, which contain very little oil, to drop. All of this makes Italy virtually the only producer of bergamot essential oil. Currently, approximately one hundred tons of essential oil are produced each year.
Natural bergamot essential oil, obtained by pressing, can be added to cosmetic products at up to 0.4%, or less than 1%. And there's a good reason for this: the level of furanocoumarins, particularly bergapten, a photosensitizing molecule naturally present in the fruit's peel.
Of all the citrus fruits, it's the most versatile. Bergamot possesses different aromas depending on its area of ​​origin: fresher in the southern coastal region, more floral in the north. Then comes the timing of the harvest: it has a green, grassy aroma early in the season, while towards the end, the scent becomes rich and fruity.
The essential oil yield is approximately 0.5% of the weight of the bergamot fruits.
The chemical composition of bergamot oil has long been only approximately known. Chemical analysis methods have confirmed the presence of significant amounts of linalyl acetate, linalool, as well as monoterpene and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons.
The results of more detailed research have not been published, likely due to the desire of chemical companies to create an imitation of bergamot oil that closely resembles the natural product. Such formulations appeared in the 1960s, and detailed publications on the composition only came in the early 1980s.
The oil was found to contain 175 substances, 26 of which have a concentration greater than 0.1% and together constitute 96% of the total oil mass. Unlike other citrus oils, it contains up to 55% of the sum of linalyl acetate and linalool. It is known that as bergamot ripens, the amount of linalyl acetate increases while that of linalool decreases. The amount of (+)-limonene is 23-32%, gamma-terpinene 5-11%, and citral 0.6%.
The scent is influenced by the presence of sesquiterpenes, including alpha-bergamotene (0.3%) and beta-bisabolene (0.6%), as well as oxygenated sesquiterpenoids (nerolidol, farnesol, bisabolol). An unexpected discovery was the presence of jasmones in bergamot oil.
The presence of bergapten (0.3-0.4%) in cold-pressed oil causes a phototoxic reaction when the oil comes into contact with human skin. Therefore, in some cases, the oil is purified from bergapten and similar furanocoumarins by vacuum rectification.
Bergamot oil is a yellow-green liquid with a fresh, pleasant scent and a bitter taste.
Since the late 18th century, bergamot oil has become an almost mandatory component of perfumery compositions. Almost all perfume and cologne recipes from the past and the beginning of the present century include this oil. And only since 1992, due to its phototoxic effect, the IFRA commission has limited the use of pressed oil to a limit of 0.4% of the mass of the finished cosmetic product, which corresponds to a 2% concentration in the composition (for perfumes containing 20% ​​of this composition).