Gardenia is another flower too delicate to distil, so what is sold is an absolute or a headspace reconstruction. Cis-linalool oxide, benzyl acetate and methyl benzoate build the creamy, faintly mushroomy floral. Most published gardenia research is on the fruit, not the flower. Geniposide, the compound behind those findings, sits in the fruit and is not volatile, so it does not appear in the absolute.^[1] Gardenia is bought for its smell, which is reason enough given how hard it is to capture.