Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil is a vibrant, lemony scent with a hint of spice, offering a fresh and uplifting aroma. Perfect for crafters, it’s ideal for adding a bright, citrusy touch to candles, soaps, diffusers, and cleaning products. Known for its energizing and deodorizing properties, this oil is a versatile addition to any crafting project. Blends beautifully with lemongrass, rosemary, and citrus oils for a refreshing, herbal-citrus scent that inspires creativity.
Ambiance: Bright / Lemony / Green / Uplifting
Please note
This is a pure, undiluted essential oil designed for crafting end products such as candles, diffusers, soaps, bath products, and other personal care items. Essential oils are highly concentrated and should not be applied directly to the skin without proper dilution in a carrier oil. All our essential oils are measured in grams, not milliliters. Bottle fill levels may vary due to differences in oil density, which affects volume.
For specific usage limits, please refer to the Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil IFRA guidelines or consult the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) included in the “Related Documents” tab. Compliance of the final product remains the responsibility of the manufacturer.
Packaging note: 10g testers are supplied in PET bottles for affordable evaluation and are not intended for long-term archival storage. Production sizes from 50g upwards are supplied in premium aluminium bottles for improved long-term protection. Read more
Olfactive Profile
- Note classification: Top note
- Scent family: Citrus / Green / Herbal / Fresh
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil has a bright, lemony, citrus-green profile with fresh, slightly spicy, herbal, and fruity nuances. It feels more lemony and sparkling than citronella, less juicy than lemon peel oil, and softer than lemongrass, with a natural citral-rich sharpness that gives it strong freshness and clarity. Its character is clean, energetic, and highly uplifting, making it especially useful in citrus, green, herbal, fresh-air, cleaning, and spa-inspired compositions.
The opening is crisp, radiant, and intensely lemony, while the drydown becomes softer, greener, and lightly herbal. Compared to classic citrus peel oils, litsea cubeba has a more botanical and slightly spicy citrus identity, making it valuable when a formula needs a lemony effect with more body, natural brightness, and aromatic freshness.
Technical Data & IFRA limits
- Product type: 100% pure essential oil
- Botanical name: Litsea Cubeba
- CAS number: 68855-99-2
- EC number: 290-018-7
- Plant part: Fruit
- Extraction method: Steam Distillation
- Origin: China
- Flashpoint: 65°C
- Density: 0.864–0.904 g/cm³ at 20°C
- Main natural constituents: Rich in citral, with naturally occurring limonene, linalool, citronellol, geraniol, eugenol, and related citrus-herbal aromatic constituents. Exact composition may vary by batch.
IFRA Maximum Usage Levels
- Candles: 100%
- Diffusers: 1.54%
- Perfumes: 0.77%
- Soaps: 1.54%
For full category-specific limits, refer to the Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil IFRA certificate available in the “Related Documents” tab.
Formulation & Creative Uses
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil works as a bright lemony top-note modifier. It adds freshness, sparkle, green citrus clarity, and a clean aromatic lift to a formula, helping heavier, sweeter, woody, herbal, resinous, or musky compositions feel more energetic and open. It is especially useful when a blend needs a strong natural lemon impression without relying only on lemon peel oil.
Common applications
- Diffusers: Useful for bright, citrus, green, cleansing, energizing, spa-like, and herbal blends, always within IFRA limits.
- Candles & wax melts: Adds a strong lemony brightness, especially in clean home, summer, herbal, citrus-green, kitchen-fresh, and spa-inspired compositions.
- Soaps: Brings a vivid lemon-green freshness, with testing required for scent retention and process stability.
- Bath & body products: Suitable when used within IFRA limits and proper dilution guidelines.
- Perfumery: Useful in citrus accords, green colognes, herbal blends, fresh florals, tea-inspired compositions, clean musks, and bright aromatic structures.
Creative directions
Use Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil when a formula needs a strong lemony lift, a clean green opening, or a more radiant citrus-herbal character. It works especially well in blends that feel too heavy, sweet, dull, resinous, woody, or flat, helping the composition become brighter, sharper, and more immediately refreshing.
For fresh diffuser and home fragrance blends, combine litsea cubeba with rosemary, eucalyptus, peppermint, lavender, basil, or lemongrass to create a crisp botanical freshness. For citrus directions, use it with lemon, lime, bergamot, grapefruit, or orange to intensify brightness and add a stronger lemon-green impact. For spa and clean woody compositions, pair it with cedarwood, amyris, frankincense, patchouli, or soft musks to balance its sharp citrus opening with a smoother base.
Litsea cubeba is also useful in herbal tea, kitchen-fresh, green citrus, outdoor, cleaning-inspired, and uplifting summer compositions. Because it is citral-rich and highly diffusive, it can become sharp, soapy, or overly lemony if overdosed. It performs best when balanced with softer citrus oils, herbs, woods, florals, musks, or gentle balsamic materials that round out its powerful lemon-green character.
Storage & Natural Variations
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil is classified as irritating to the skin, irritating to the eyes, sensitising, hazardous if swallowed and enters the airways, and toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. Always follow the IFRA guidance and SDS for the intended product category. The final safety assessment, dilution level, labeling, and regulatory compliance remain the responsibility of the manufacturer.
Essential oils are natural aromatic materials, and slight variations in scent, colour, density, and appearance may occur from batch to batch. These differences are normal and can be influenced by harvest conditions, climate, origin, plant material, and natural compositional variation.
Scent perception may also vary depending on individual sensitivity, dilution level, formulation base, and application method. Essential oils may not smell exactly the same in the bottle as they do in a finished product. We strongly recommend testing a 10g bottle before committing to larger quantities, especially for commercial production.
To preserve quality, store tightly sealed in the original container, away from heat, light, air, and moisture. Citral-rich essential oils can be sensitive to oxidation and should be stored carefully to preserve their fresh aromatic character. Store in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place and avoid release into drains, surface water, or the environment.
Order processing times
Standard lead time is 1-2 business days. Processing times may be longer during peak holiday seasons—please plan accordingly.
Bulk Orders
For larger quantities, we offer bulk production starting from 5kg per fragrance code, with a 10% discount per kilogram. Customers who need more than 5kgs per scent, can contact us to arrange a proforma invoice. Bulk orders are produced in multipliers of 5 (5kg, 10kg, 15kg, etc.) and lead times vary depending on fragrance and time of the year, usually within the range of 3 to 8 weeks.
Product Suitability Guide
Comparison of typical formulation levels with the maximum permitted use for each application based on IFRA 51st amdt.
| Application | Typical Use | Suitability |
|---|---|---|
Candles & Wax Melts
|
7–12% | Suitable |
Electric Diffusers
|
Up to 100%* | Suitable* |
Pillow Mists
|
1–5% | Below Range |
Room Sprays
|
2–5% | Suitable |
Reed Diffusers
|
15–25% | Below Range |
Soaps & Rinse-off
|
1–3% | Limited |
Hair Fragrance
|
1–3% | Below Range |
Lotions & Body Oils
|
0.5–2% | Below Range |
Fine Fragrance
|
10–15% | Below Range |
Facial Makeup
|
0.1–1% | Limited |
Body Mist & Deodorant
|
1–5% | Below Range |
How to Read the Suitability Statements
✓ Suitable: the permitted concentration reaches or exceeds the average typical-use range. △ Limited: the permitted concentration falls within the typical-use range but remains below its midpoint. × Below Range: the permitted concentration falls below the typical-use range. × Not Permitted: the applicable limit is 0%.
Please Note
Typical-use ranges are general formulation benchmarks, not product-specific recommendations. Suitability is determined by comparing the stated typical-use range with the maximum permitted concentration shown in the current supplier IFRA document.
This guide does not confirm scent performance, base compatibility, stability, device compatibility or complete finished-product compliance. Appropriate testing and all applicable safety, labelling and regulatory requirements remain the responsibility of the finished-product manufacturer.
*Electric diffusers: Up to 100% fragrance may be used only in equipment designed for undiluted fragrance oil. Dilution, carrier and compatibility requirements vary by device. Always follow the equipment manufacturer’s instructions.
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Sander Sepp (verified owner) –
Bright lemon aroma, boosts mood wonderfully. Good choice but not for my car air freshener.