Terpenes: not just for Christmas

A week or so after the big day and all the Christmas trees have been evicted from our homes. For a couple of weeks they had pride of place in lounges and halls – softly lit with strings of twinkling lights – but now they are outside slumped against wheelie bins. There is one aspect of these trees, however, that we shouldn’t dismiss so quickly.

Terpenes are the chemicals that give Christmas trees their inviting pine scent. It therefore makes sense that they are used as fragrances. Pinene, for example, smells like woodland, while limonene smells of lemon. They have other uses too; oil of turpentine, a mixture of several different terpene chemicals distilled from pine sap, is traditionally used in oil painting. Some terpenes and their derivatives are even used as medicines.