Autumn 26

A defining scent of the Mediterranean, immortelle is an evergreen shrub which thrives amid rocks and sun-baked soil. With its herbaceous, grassy notes, our immortelle absolute is made by solvent extraction of the dried flowers, hand-picked from the dunes of Andalusia in June and July.

Lavender Maillette essential oil is considered one of the finest varieties in perfumery. While it shares the familiar character of Lavandula angustifolia, its scent is notably softer, sweeter, and more nuanced. Our lavender Maillette is grown and harvested in Provence, where the flower has been cultivated since the 15th century.

Our violets are grown in the nutrient-rich soils of the Nile Valley, Egypt, where from December to May, local harvesters gather the leaves by hand, starting at dawn. The leaves are transformed through solvent extraction, yielding a rich, dark green liquid known as violet leaf absolute.

While hay absolute calls to mind temperate harvests, the plant from which it is extracted is in fact, Arctic. The sweetgrass Hierochloe alpina grows wild on the circumpolar tundra, particularly on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, in Svalbard.

Made from the dried, powdered and distilled roots of bearded iris, orris is one of perfume’s rarest ingredients. After three to four years of flowering, the iris roots are dug by hand and matured for several years. These are powdered, mixed with water and steam distilled to produce a semi-solid oil.

Our cypriol comes from the wetlands of Madhya Pradesh in India, where its wild, grassy roots have grown for thousands of years.

The essential oil is extracted by steam distillation of the plant’s rhizomes - a time-consuming process that contributes to its rarity. Its animalic, earthy tones sit at the base of a fragrance, where it extends longevity.

Our fennel oil is steam distilled from fennel seeds, sourced from the rocky coast of Andalusia, Spain. Native to the Mediterranean, fennel has a rich history, and has been a staple in both culinary and medicinal practices for centuries.

Our coriander is grown by farming cooperatives in the famously fertile soil of the Central Black Earth region of Ukraine on Russia’s western border. The entire fruit is harvested late in the summer, and distilled on site with a traditional steam-based method.

Grown on Calabrian hills overlooking the Ionian Sea, the fruit is harvested by hand and the oil extracted at source. The La Face family planted their first bergamot in the 1930s and have been mastering the craft of producing citrus oils ever since.

Ffern’s geranium, Pelargonium graveolens, is also known as the rose geranium. Legend has it that this flower was created when the prophet Mohammed, after bathing in a river, laid his shirt upon a mallow branch to dry. The mallow was so honoured that it transformed into the beautiful rose geranium.

Lavandin Grosso is a hybrid of true lavender and spike lavender, born from centuries of the flower’s cultivation in Provence, France. While it shares much of true lavender’s character, its scent is distinctly brighter and more camphorous, with a cleaner profile that is less sweet and floral.

Originally developed in eighteenth-century Holland, Ffern’s Rose de Mai is grown in Morocco. Traditionally picked only in the month of May, our rose petals undergo solvent extraction immediately, to produce a dark, fragrant wax that can be processed into an absolute or oil.

Distilled from the leaves and branches of the camphor tree, ho wood oil is a light, very pleasant woody note with floral and citrus facets. Rosewood sadly being endangered, ho wood is often used as a sustainable alternative in perfumery.

Broom shrubs bloom in late spring, revealing butter-yellow petals. They are hand-harvested at the height of their bloom, when their scent is most intense, then transformed into an absolute through solvent extraction. The scent is deliciously bitter and honeyed, reminiscent of orange blossom and dried fruit.

Jasmine grandiflorum is one of the most sought after ingredients in perfumery. To make a kilogram of the absolute takes eight million flowers - these delicate, night-flowering blooms are hand-picked at dawn between June and September in the Indian Himalayas, where the flowers are sacred.

Our tonka beans are collected by hand in South America, when the fruits of the Dipteryx odorata tree fall during the dry season. The seeds are dried, soaked in rum, then ground and transformed into an oil through solvent extraction.

Found in temperate, mountainous forests in the northern hemisphere, oakmoss is a branching lichen that grows on the branches and trunks of the oak tree. Ours is foraged from wild oaks in Samokov, Macedonia, before being transported to Grasse, where the oil is extracted by a family-run distillery.

Benzoin Siam is a balsamic resin taken from the bark of the styrax tree, growing wild in the Annamite mountains of Laos. In September, a v-shaped cut is made in the tree bark, and brittle white ‘tears’ of benzoin resin accumulate over three-weeks. This process is known as ‘tapping’.

Our red cedar wood (also known as red juniper) is grown and harvested in its native Virginia, USA. The oil is steam distilled directly from a cabinet maker’s offcuts. It shares the classic woody notes of atlas cedar, but introduces a distinctive ‘pencil’ facet.