Limonene is found in its highest concentration in natural essential oil products, especially grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime and bergamot. It’s very commonly used in fragrance and flavouring ingredients. You’ll find it often on ingredient lists in cosmetics but it’s usually a hidden ingredient in food products. Natural cleaning products make full use of limonene as well!

Limonene is most commonly extracted from the peels (especially the rind where the highest concentrations can be found) of citrus fruits. The essential oil can be extracted from the raw material using steam distillation.

In the EU, limonene must appear as a separate ingredient in ingredient lists, despite it being a naturally occurring component of essential oils because it is also used in proprietary parfum/perfume/fragrance blends. It must appear separately because it is recognised as an allergenic fragrance.

Limonene can also be found in full-spectrum CBD products. You can be certain your CBD product contains limonene if it is advertised as “contains terpenes” or as “full-spectrum”.