How much Citral can you put in a perfume?

IFRA standard: Citral · Category 4, 51st Amendment

0.6%

of the finished perfume, at most

Under the IFRA Standards (51st Amendment, Category 4: fine fragrance on skin), Citral may make up at most 0.6% of the finished perfume. In an eau de parfum at 18%, that is at most 3.33% of your concentrate: 3.33% of every 100 g.

Citral is also one of the EU's declarable fragrance allergens: above 0.001% of a leave-on product it must be named on the label.

Check your own formula in the free IFRA calculator

What the limit means at your strength

The limit is on the finished perfume, so the stronger the perfume, the less Citral its concentrate can hold. If nothing else in the formula carries it:

Perfume strength	Most Citral in the concentrate
Cologne, 5%	12%
Eau de toilette, 10%	6%
15%	4%
Eau de parfum, 18%	3.33%
20%	3%
Extrait, 25%	2.4%

What the standard says

The limit covers the listed isomers and forms together, not each one on its own.

Which materials contain Citral?

Sold as Citral itself, counted in full:

Citral

It also arrives inside other materials. The limit is on the total, so the calculator adds every source together. The largest carriers in PerfuMate's catalog, by their typical composition:

Material	Typical content	Alone at 18%, at most
Lemon Myrtle Essential Oilnatural	95%	3.5% of the concentrate
Lemongrass Essential Oilnatural	75%	4.44% of the concentrate
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oilnatural	73%	4.56% of the concentrate
Lemon Tea Tree Essential Oilnatural	72%	4.62% of the concentrate
Melissa Essential Oilnatural	45%	7.4% of the concentrate
Verbena Essential Oilnatural	30%	11.1% of the concentrate
Petitgrain Citronnier Essential Oilnatural	25%	13.3% of the concentrate
Lemon Oil Terpenelessnatural	20%	16.6% of the concentrate

83 materials in the catalog carry Citral; the calculator counts every one of them.

Shares are the catalog's typical values. A real batch varies with origin and season, and your supplier's analysis (GC-MS or certificate of analysis) is the real figure.

A worked example

A 100 g concentrate, bottled as an eau de parfum at 18%:

Material	Weighed
Citral	1.7 g
Lemon Myrtle Essential Oil	2.1 g
Ethylene Brassylate no IFRA limit	96.2 g

Citral alone brings 0.306% Citral to the finished perfume, and Lemon Myrtle Essential Oil adds 0.359%. Each looks modest, but the perfume holds 0.665% against a limit of 0.6%: 1.11 times the limit. To bring it inside on its own, the calculator cuts Citral from 1.7 g to 1.528 g and Lemon Myrtle Essential Oil from 2.1 g to 1.887 g. Or keep the formula and bottle it weaker: the highest strength inside every limit is 16.23%.

Open this example in the IFRA calculator

Or paste these lines into the calculator:

Citral  1.7 g
Lemon Myrtle Essential Oil  2.1 g
Ethylene Brassylate  96.2 g

Questions

Is Citral banned in perfume?

No. IFRA restricts it: at most 0.6% of a fine fragrance (Category 4).

How much Citral can I use in an eau de parfum?

At 18%, at most 3.33% of the concentrate, if nothing else in the formula carries Citral. Every other source counts toward the same total.

Does Citral from essential oils count?

Yes. The limit is on the total in the finished perfume, whatever brings it: Lemon Myrtle Essential Oil typically carries 95%. The calculator adds every source.

Does this limit apply to candles or soap?

No. This is Category 4, fine fragrance on skin. Other products sit in other IFRA categories with other limits, which these pages and the calculator do not cover.