Herbaria/Herbaria Blog/Citrus, My Main Squeeze

Citrus, My Main Squeeze

July 10, 2026

Sliced Citrus Fruits on a white background

Peel an orange, and the spray from the rind smells bright, fresh, and definitely orangy.

Bake a lemon cake with lemon zest, and you'll taste and smell the tangy, lemony deliciousness.

Citrus is straight-up freshness and brightness.

We adore the clean, zesty, and energizing scents of citrus. Herbaria crafts over 20 varieties of soap and a handful of products that contain citrus scents.

Citrus is huge in the fruit department. The original forms of the tree were readily hybridized over many centuries to create the varieties we love today— lemons, limes, tangerines, kumquats, citrons, grapefruits, pomelos, sweet and bitter oranges, and more.

Skin Care Benefits

Citrus oils can deliver vitamin C to your skin to combat aging by boosting collagen production. They contain natural alpha-hydroxy compounds, which remove dead skin cells and help fade scars and dark spots.

The astringent properties of citrus help unclog pores and balance your natural skin oil production. It’s considered good for acne.

Citrus Aromas

As you read about peeling an orange here, can you smell it? I think it's like imagining somebody, a friend, say, and picturing them in your mind, though you can't exactly smell the orange, something in your mind recalls.

While we're on the subject, here's a fun word: anosmia. It means the inability to smell. It's more debilitating than we realize. Over three-fourths of our sense of taste is smell.

Our nasal passages contain 400 different types of olfactory receptors. These receptors work together to identify molecules in the air. Scientists say humans can detect at least a trillion different smells. If that doesn't blow your mind, sniff again, lightly like a puppy.

Orange

Before refrigeration and efficient means of transport, oranges were rare and expensive. We take them for granted. In the 1800s, an orange was an extravagant Christmas gift. Indeed, oranges play a role in many folkloric traditions, often symbolizing good luck, wealth, and gold.

Orange smells both bright and warm, sweet and tangy. Its natural fragrance takes center stage in our Citrus Oatmeal bar. It's been a customer favorite for 24 years.

Grapefruit

I'm crazy about grapefruit. I eat one every day they're in season, from October to May. I love grapefruit so much that we made a video about it 13 years ago, and it’s still on YouTube. Grapefruit growers would be wise to remake it on a bigger budget.

Grapefruit is considered a high note in perfumery, that is, it doesn't stick around like a base note. The scent is bright and fleeting. We make a straight Pink Grapefruit bar and an aromatic mixture with Pink Grapefruit & Eucalyptus.

Bergamot

One of our favorites is bergamot, a lemon-looking citrus that grows on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. The fruit looks like a lemon but has a more perfumey smell. It's the scent added to make Earl Grey tea distinctive.

Bergamot essential oil is included in six of our soaps, but it stars in Italian Bergamot. Buono!

Lemon and Lime

So close yet so deliciously different. I'm guessing you're plenty familiar with lemons and limes. Avocado Lemon soap is very popular. It smells clean and fresh.

For lime lovers, try a bar of Lime Coconut Aloe or enjoy the refreshing cocktail blend of lime with mint in our Mojito soap.

Bathers will enjoy some of our citrus Caracalla Bath Bombs: Lemon Grove, Tangerine Pomander, Pink Grapefruit & Eucalyptus, and Rose Garden, which has bergamot in the essential oil blend.

Petitgrain

The orange tree delivers more than essential oil from the peel of the fruit—twigs and leaves of the bitter orange tree are distilled to make petitgrain essential oil. I adore petitgrain. The aroma is “floral, herbaceous, and citrusy.”

In the early years of Herbaria, we had a bar called Florida Water Soap, a scent based on a nineteenth-century recipe. We were unaware that the name was still copyrighted and were kindly asked to stop using it, which, of course, we did. That bar became Jojoba Shampoo for a while, and today it's Traveler's Choice. That's my favorite bar featuring petitgrain.

Neroli

Imagine the scent of an orange, but a sweeter, more flowery scent, and you'll get neroli, made from the flowers of the orange tree. To date, we only use it in our Neroli Body Mist & Deodorant. We blend neroli with myrrh for a unique, complex aroma. If you visit our shop, please try a spritz of it just for the pure joy of smelling something delightful.

We use neroli hydrosol, an aromatic water-based byproduct of the distillation of the essential oil, which, at last check, is over $3,500 a pound! Scents derived from flowers are not something we use often because we want our products to be affordable and used on a daily basis.

Citrus-like Scents

In our citrus grouping, we include a few essential oils not in the Citrus family.

Lemongrass and Citronella

Lemongrass is a tropical grass with a lemony, gingery, floral scent. It stars in our Sage Lemongrass bar. Clary sage and lemongrass are both considered deodorizing and will make you extra clean.

Citronella, a first cousin to lemongrass, is also considered lemony. We think of citronella as an insect repellent, which it has been proven to be, but I’ve seen a Chinese recipe for Fish Cooked in Citronella. How would that taste?

We employ citronella along with seven other essential oils with natural insect repellent properties in Camper’s Choice soap, Camper’s Choice Luffa, and our Citronella Mist insect repellent.

May Chang

In the Citrus group of scents, we include may chang, a tree from the Laurel family. The tiny berries contain more citral than anything in the Citrus family. Citral is the compound that gives the lemon scent.

May chang essential oil is prized in skin care products. It smells like lemon verbena but is far less costly. We could have named our May Chang soap “Lemon Verbena” and probably sold more bars, but we like telling it like it is.