linalool

floral terpenoid Key food odorant

Found in 238 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H18O
Molecular weight: 154.25 g/mol
PubChem CID: 6549 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: flowery, citrus.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: floral, citrus, woody, sweet, lavender
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 5.5 ppb – 6.0 ppb median 5.8 ppb · 2 published values · see all 42 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 78-70-6
Retention index: 1100

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 2635
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: LINALOOL-3,7-Dimethyl-1,6-octadien-3-01; Linalol

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 2 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Also filed as

linalool-m

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

flower, lavender, citrus Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

green, chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

camphor, pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fruity FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

sharp FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

blueberry, bois de rose, citrus, floral, flower, green, lavender, lemon, orange, sweet, woody FlavorDB 2.0

130

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

42 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

5.5 ppb – 6.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.5 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—
6.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

0.087 ppb – 500 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.087 ppb SIDA	water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.087 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.100 ppb	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	15740053, 23122094, 41900883
0.170 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.220 ppb SIDA	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.300 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	23341742
0.460 ppb	water (food: lemon)	Literature corpus	31684768, 34136001, 34824643 +3
0.574 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	17499755, 33889833
0.580 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.750 ppb	water (food: orange)	Literature corpus	37515910
1.0 ppb	water (food: chocolate)	Literature corpus	17898464
1.1 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	19241555, 24594176, 36144849 +4
2.7 ppb	water (food: lamb)	Literature corpus	28344493
2.7 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
4.8 ppb	water (food: tomato)	Literature corpus	28050733, 39789073
5.2 ppb	water (food: ginger)	Literature corpus	38802394, 41193520
5.2 ppb	water (food: cocoa)	Literature corpus	36900586, 38005802
6.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
8.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	26501053, 26973621, 38346996 +2
9.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: mushroom)	Literature corpus	26501053, 30022505, 35542441
17.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	29376363, 28480362, 32251584 +6
19.5 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	41083478
21.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	32251584, 12467918, 12710722 +218
30.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	29376363, 12467918, 12710722 +218
59.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	29376363, 22156419, 30270444 +5
84.0 ppb	water (food: soy sauce)	Literature corpus	17898513
87.7 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	26501053, 28490131, 18570373 +156
154 ppb SIDA	water (food: cinnamon)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
466 ppb	water (food: peach)	Literature corpus	37476402
500 ppb SIDA	water (food: litsea pungens fruit)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
575 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	24688522, 35454969, 35523852 +3
Flagged: 102× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1099 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	38519512
Flagged: 196× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1529 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	18570373, 39410216
Flagged: 272× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2527 ppb SIDA	water (food: blueberry)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
Flagged: 450× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

1.5 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.5 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

6.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb SIDA	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218

Other matrix

37.0 ppb – 70.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
37.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
37.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
69.0 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
70.0 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (5.75 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 42 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
date	606000.0	105391 ⚡	PMID 26420557
hazelnut	100000.0	17391 ⚡	PMID 23663154
basil	100000.0	17391 ⚡	PMID 40444174
apple	50052.2	8705 ⚡	PMID 30451904
strawberry	17501.7	3044 ⚡	Corpus paper
grape	15000.0	2609 ⚡	PMID 11308345
tangerine	12960.0	2254 ⚡	PMID 28158965
beer	5002.5	870 ⚡	PMID 30007722
cocoa	3250.0	565 ⚡	Corpus paper
honey	2276.9	396 ⚡	DOI
beef	1531.0	266 ⚡	Corpus paper
bread	1101.0	191 ⚡	Corpus paper
orange	1091.0	190 ⚡	Corpus paper
beetroot	1059.0	184 ⚡	—
turkey	1000.0	174 ⚡	PMID 30895566
cinnamon	821.0	143 ⚡	Corpus paper
rum	589.5	103 ⚡	Corpus paper
soybean	580.0	101 ⚡	PMID 37965015
mushroom	551.5	95.9 ⚡	Corpus paper
red wine	234.0	40.7 ⚡	Corpus paper

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain linalool. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of linalool in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

date

measured · OAV 105391.3

421 cmpds

basil

measured · OAV 17391.3

376 cmpds

apple

measured · OAV 8704.74

527 cmpds

strawberry

measured · OAV 3043.77

479 cmpds