Mandarin Peel

Citrus reticulata

Grown and pressed from the organically grown fruit (peels) in Italy

This is Green Mandarin

Mandarins are native to China and are now available around the world, as they are happy to grow in many climates and adapt easily. Soft delicious citrus without acidity or bite. Mandarin is a wonderful and gentle citrus, suitable for most. Use as a tonic, or as an uplifting addition of sunshine.

Mandarin is the same botanical binominal as Tangerine. The difference lies in their terroir. The scents are very similar, with mandarin being a little fuller, a little more sophisticated perhaps, and with a teeny, tiny fish note. Tangerine is a little more innocent, less complicated. For this reason, we are not carrying tangerine these days, as we are completely seduced by our wonderful mandarins.

There are three basic mandarin colors available and they have to do with ripeness. Green mandarin is the first mandarin of the season--the fruits are picked while still green and the green imparts a delicious, mouth-watering sharp tang. This oil also has a red current note--characteristic of fresh Italian mandarin oil. The red current note will fade after the first few months, leaving the gorgeous mandarin as we know it.

Mandarin is great for day to day fragrancing of your space, with alone or with other essential oils. It’s a happy part of many aromatherapy blends, and has a good place in perfumery, mostly as a moderator. It’s also great as a flavor—think gelato of course, but can add a nice sparkle to savory dishes too, like pasta salad, etc. If you use mandarin essential oil in your comestibles, though, take care and be prudent. Do not, under any circumstances, add any essential oil directly from the bottle to your dish—you are inviting disaster. Essential oils are really really strong. One drop will likely be enough, or more than enough. So add a drop to a spoon, and from there stir it into your dish. Just make sure you add it to something else first so you keep control over how strong it is. You can even add part of a drop, yes that is a thing

Red mandarin is picked when the fruit is at full maturity, when the fruit is at its sweetest. This mandarin is complete happiness, sunshine, and loving delight. Red mandarin is the essence of uplifting and optimism. 

Yellow mandarin is between these two and we don’t always carry it so if you were looking for it, we do have it sometimes, but we always have the green and the red, both of which have their own fan clubs.

Shamrock Haiku Journal

prairie sky—
the sudden spray
from a peeled mandarin

-- Anatoly Kudryavitsky.

Arctander says

Quick caveat here—Arctander’s Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin was published in 1960, and a lot has changed. While it remains the standard descriptive work for perfume and flavor materials of natural origin, cultivation has changed, countries become strong suppliers or cease production, have wars, etc. Also, certain oils which were produced in the past, are now longer available and for some the reverse is true. Mandarin seems to be in this situation. I’ve included Arctander’s description here as I do with every oil description so there is some kind of a standard description. In scent, so much is subjective, whether you agree with my descriptions or not, the Arctander description is true throughout our website. It might help with a decision or online analysis.

Mandarin peel oil is a dark brown to dark yellowish brown or olive brown, or sometimes lemon yellow mobile liquid of intensely sweet, not very fresh odor occasionally with an amine-like, fishy top-note and usually with a rich neroli-like, floral undertone.

Mandarin oil is used mainly in flavors where it gives interesting modifications with sweet and biter orange oils, grapefruit oil, lime oil, etc….Mandarin peel oil is an excellent blender-intensifier for sweet orange oils in flavors where its rich body compensates for drawbacks  in certain types of sweet orange oil.

In perfumery, mandarin peel oil is used sparingly in colognes as a modifier for other citrus oils, in neroli bases, in fantasy “moss” notes, or as a particular note for “special” effects.

Battaglia says

Mandarin peel oil is known to have the following effects

Anti-fungal

Anti-inflammatory

Anti-microbial

Anti-tumor

Sedative

Anti-depressant

Antiseptic

Antispasmodic

Carminative

Cholagogue

Depurative

Digestive

Diuretic

Salvatore Battaglia offers quite a bit of information in his book The Complete Guide to Aromatherapy. I highly recommend it if you are looking for further information on the aromatherapeutic uses of mandarin.