OrrisResinoid.com

A resinoid is a category, not a recipe

The trade’s words for natural extracts are fixed in ISO 9235, whose 2021 edition "specifies the terms and definitions relating to aromatic natural raw materials".1 The nomenclature that IFRA and the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials use for natural complex substances follows the standard’s 2013 edition: a letter for the plant part, A for root, and a number for the process, 2.26 for resinoid, 2.7 for concrete, 2.1 for absolute.2 In one research group’s summary, concretes come from non-polar solvents, resinoids "by extraction with polar solvents and concentration", and absolutes from re-extracting either in ethanol.3 OrrisResinoid.com has no affiliation with ISO, IFRA, RIFM or any producer.

From dried root to resinoid

Orris resinoid starts where orris butter does, with the dried rhizome of Iris pallida or Iris × germanica, both accepted names.1516 A 2025 review, following a trade specification, gives benzene or petroleum ether as the solvents for "comminuted dried rhizomes".4 A Turkish study used Iris florentina, accepted as Iris × florentina:14 rhizomes from three-year-old plants, shade-dried for three months and ground, were shaken with n-hexane and the solvent removed on a rotary evaporator. The resinoid came to 2.21 per cent, against 0.07 per cent essential oil from the dry root; washing the resinoid in ethanol, chilling and filtering gave a semi-solid absolute at 1.92 per cent.5

Butter, absolute, resinoid: what each keeps

Steam gives orris butter, a solid rich in myristic and other fatty acids, also sold as orris concrete; remove the fatty acids with alkali and the result is orris absolute, whose main components are cis-γ- and cis-α-irone.7 The names blur: the steam distillate is called a concrete, and a hexane extract is published as a resinoid.75 The balance of odorants differs too. In the Turkish comparison the irones that set orris’s commercial value peaked in the dry-rhizome oil, 4.21 per cent α-irone and 7.88 per cent trans-2,6-γ-irone, and were lowest in the resinoid, at 0.69 and 1.25 per cent.5

Isoflavones, and a species fingerprint

Iris resinoid from I. germanica or I. pallida rhizomes "is widely used in the perfume industry", yet a 2012 study of Moroccan resinoids opened by noting that its chemical composition had not been reported. Eight isoflavones turned up in both, among them irigenin and irilone; irisolidone turned up in I. germanica alone, and three other compounds in I. pallida alone. Total isoflavones came to 180 ± 1.6 mg/g and 120 ± 3.3 mg/g respectively, and the authors concluded the two species "can be distinguished by simply analysing the polyphenol fraction".6

Powdery, violet, and a fixative name

Orris is described as "a rich and powerful floral note with a powdery character, reminiscent of the scent of violet", and a small amount of the oil goes into high-end perfume for that effect.7 The distilled oil is valued both for its violet-like smell and for "powerful fixative properties".8 A Florence paper puts the same point in trade terms: perfumers have long steam-distilled orris root powder into an oil "for use as a fixative in fine perfumes".9 Those sources speak of the oil. For the resinoid, the documented point is its wide use in perfumery.6

Orris as a powder

The dried root has a long life as a powder. Florence’s English-language paper records orris root "harvested, dried, peeled and pounded to make powder used for washing clothes, hair, and teeth".9 An anonymous early-modern English manuscript mixes damask rose water, lavender, benjamin, musk, civet and "orris roots (from the Florentine iris)" to sprinkle on linen as it was folded for storage.10 The English spread rhizome powder on linen ruffs in storage; the French boiled pieces with linen.4 In an American tooth powder of the early 1900s, Florentine orris made up 9.9 per cent by weight, behind precipitated chalk at 79.0 per cent.11

The irones, from the root’s side

The odorant has a violet back-story. Investigating violet-flower oil, Ferdinand Tiemann turned to the more available iris root oil; in 1893 he and Krüger isolated a ketone they named irone, with a wrong formula, and their attempt to build it from citral and acetone gave ionone instead. Ruzicka set irone at C₁₄H₂₂O in 1933, and Rautenstrauch and Ohloff fixed its stereochemistry in 1971.12 Irones form as iridals break down while the rhizome ages;13 in the Turkish study they were not detected in oil from fresh rhizome at all.5 Chiral gas chromatography can tell natural orris oils from non-natural ones.17

Who builds on a name like OrrisResinoid.com

• Natural-extract producers. Resinoid, concrete and absolute each carry their own code.21
• Fine fragrance houses. Powdery, violet, used in small amounts.7
• Analytical laboratories. Isoflavones separate the species; chirality, natural from not.617
• Toiletry and heritage brands. Orris went into linen powders and tooth powders.1011
• Growers and processors. Butter and resinoid both start from dried rhizome.45
• Fragrance historians. Irone was isolated on the way to ionone.12

1. ISO 9235:2021, Aromatic natural raw materials: vocabulary.ISO, 2021
2. Nomenclature for natural complex substances.IFRA
3. Popova V et al. Concretes from the flowers of four Nicotiana species.Molecules, 2020
4. Crișan I. The genus Iris: botany, cultivation, uses.Plants, 2025
5. Kara N, Baydar H. Essential oil, resinoid and absolute of iris.Anadolu J Agric Sci, 2014
6. Roger B et al. Flavonoids in Iris resinoids from Morocco.Phytochem Anal, 2012
7. Yamazaki S, Miyazaki M. Synthesis and olfactory evaluation of (±)-β-irone.Sci Rep, 2025
8. Frišćić M et al. Volatiles of three endemic Iris taxa.Molecules, 2024
9. O’Sullivan J. Consider the iris.The Florentine, 2011
10. Fletcher H, Handley S. Sleep and scent in early modern England.Hist Workshop J, 2026
11. Unterbrink P et al. Toothpaste formulations, 1900 to 2023.Dent J, 2024
12. Brenna E et al. The ten isomers of irone.C R Chimie, 2003
13. Roger B et al. Irone quantification in iris rhizomes.Phytochem Anal, 2010
14. Iris × florentina L.World Flora Online
15. Iris pallida Lam.World Flora Online
16. Iris × germanica L.World Flora Online
17. Galfré A et al. Enantioselective separation of all irone isomers.J Essent Oil Res, 1993