The door to the kitchen stands open. A basket of quinces, freshly picked, sits on the windowsill, and the scent of warming spices drifts from the stove. Shafts of light break through the cloistered darkness, while ribbons of saffron flame red against an oak table, blackened with use and pressed by many hands.

It is into this kitchen scene, resembling a Dutch still life, that we invite you to step with our Autumn 24 fragrance.

Our journey begins with the fruit of the season: the quince. Harvested in late October, it carries with it a multiplicity of scents. In its raw state the waxy skin is lightly floral, almost pear-like, which is perhaps why quinces were once used to perfume linen cupboards. Cooked, though, the grainy white flesh becomes amber and emits an enigmatic aroma.

Quince itself has no essential oil, so to capture its many facets we turned to the delicate tones of jasmine, neroli and davana, pairing them with caraway, aniseed and carrot seed for their earthy and softly spiced notes.

We were happy with this accord for the raw fruit, but in our kitchen the quince is gently simmering too, filling the air with furls of steam, nectar-sweet and velvety. Myrrh, nutmeg and olibanum brought the alchemy we were seeking, transporting us momentarily to the other side of the world.

Yet there was a dark, almost leathery element that seemed missing, another layer of honey and spice. We found this in a deep crimson oil we have long been wanting to use: saffron, once worth its weight in gold.

Saffron’s great expense lies in the time it takes to extract the flame-red stigmas from autumn crocus flowers. These fine strands must be harvested by hand at mid-morning when the petals are fully open to the sun – it can take up to 200,000 flowers to create one kilogram of dried saffron threads. 

In cooking, quince is often spiced with saffron, and we discovered the same affinity in the fragrance, the saffron enriching the scent and bringing the finishing touch to our kitchen scene. 


Ffern’s latest Autumn fragrance captures the scent of a Provençal quince steeped in saffron and warm spices.

Autumn 24

Autumn 24 captures the fruit of the season: the golden quince. To complement its soft pear-like notes, we added the floral tones of jasmine and davana, set upon a warm, gently spiced base of myrrh and caraway seed.

In sheds and under cloches, closed off from the light and frost, something very special grows from midwinter into early spring. Bright pink, sour-sweet forced rhubarb, delicate and fine. 

We have long wanted to bottle this harvest. But rhubarb is one of those plants which has no fragrant oil to extract - so in trying to replicate its scent, we needed to create a new accord that would blend with our light springtime palette of citrus, florals and spices. Together with Elodie, our nose, we considered rhubarb’s aspects.

First, its tartness - that sour zing that is so distinctive. For this we looked to citruses: bitter orange, bergamot and grapefruit. Bergamot’s florality and the orange’s bitter edge took us part of the way there, but it was grapefruit’s herbaceous acidity that touched on the acute sharpness we were looking for. 

Onto our citrus we layered timut pepper, a bright note that fizzes and sparkles, and a touch of clean, fruity buchu. 

But rhubarb is also sweet, and this is the more pronounced in forced varieties, inseparable from thoughts of crumbles and tarts, sugar crystals clinging to pink stems. For this we used davana, a fragrant herb with an elusive scent, said to smell completely different on each person who wears it - but always with a syrupy, jam-like tone, just what we needed.

And finally we came to the earth in which the rhubarb is grown. Here we reached for ginger for its dry spice, and paired it with pencil-like red cedar. 

The finishing touch was our beautiful Haitian vetiver, with the addition of a new form of the oil. This season we fractionated our vetiver, separating the oil into parts. This allows us to remove those facets that are less beautiful - leaving a pure scent reminiscent of the first green shoots of spring. 


Ffern’s natural Spring 24 fragrance features forced rhubarb: one of the season’s finest flavours.

Spring 24

Spring 24 distils one of the season’s finest flavours: forced rhubarb. Bright pink, sour-sweet and utterly distinctive, the rhubarb sits amid Ffern’s fresh springtime palate.

It is late summer and the edge of evening. Fields flecked with gold stretch out towards the horizon. The heat of the day rises up from the parched earth; a warm breath against the paling blue of the wide, cloudless sky. The sun descends, burning between the old oak trees. An owl, parchment white, emerges from the shadows. As dusk deepens, the crescent moon brightens. 

The scent, held in this long dim before nightfall, is heady, rich and spiced. It carries with it traces of a verdant midsummer and the drier, deeper notes of the season’s end. It is layered and complex, belonging only to this time of year. For Summer 21, it is this scent we have sought to capture.

We began with the field and the warm, cracked earth. In recreating this we married nutmeg with vetiver; the dry, dusty sweetness of the nutmeg complimenting the woodiness of the vetiver. To add warmth and depth we introduced olibanum, with its peppery, incense-like facet, and benzoin siam, bringing a rounded, gently balsamic flavour. 

For the memory of midsummer, we turned to the citrus notes of bitter orange, lime and green mandarin. These full, zesty top notes cut through with a freshness that we softened with the quiet, floral notes of jasmine and neroli. While only faint, we included the herbal, culinary notes of coriander and basil, hinting at the green growth of the hedgerows.

Though these ingredients combined to capture a distinctive scene, we continued to search for something that might embody the amber glow of the evening - that soft, mellow haze that seems to fill the air. We found it in ‘Hierochloe alpina’, more commonly known as hay. Warm and sweet, with tobacco and almond undertones (it naturally contains coumarin), the hay brought the missing element. 




Ffern's organic Summer 21 fragrance evokes the haze of a late summer’s evening. Spicy, warm base notes of hay, nutmeg and vetiver underscore full, zesty top notes of bitter orange, lime and green mandarin – softened with the quiet, floral mid notes of jasmine and neroli. 

Summer 21

There is a word for the way the air smells after the rain: petrichor. It is a marriage of two Greek words, ‘petra’, meaning stone, and ‘ichor’, the fluid that flows through the veins of Gods. It occurs when plant oils, trapped within the soil, are released by the rain into the air. 

The air, washed and heavy with new scents, holds within it something of the landscape. When it rains within a wood, the result is perhaps the most compelling of all. For Autumn 20, it is this we have sought to capture.

Our beginning was Autumn 19, set in a Scottish pine forest. This season, we find ourselves in a wilder woodland. Older, darker, richer. More alive. Here the sky hangs low and the woodland floor, dampened by fresh rain, is varied and intimate, with lush green shoots emerging from the shade of a once-great oak tree. 

We’ve rebalanced the wood notes, softening the balsam fir and introducing oud, an ancient, resinous base note derived from the heartwood of the aquilaria tree. The oud, together with the red cedar and guaiac offers up a tapestry of smokey, sylvan notes, reflecting the diversity of the woodland. The fresh growth is caught in the bay leaf, which brings a culinary liveliness, and the davana, with a herbal, berry-like quality. 

---

Distilling the essence of petrichor was an entirely different challenge. After countless iterations, we discovered that rose absolute, cognac oil and oak moss made for an earthy, succulent combination - the honeyish, floral tones of the rose enhanced by the cognac oil and balanced by the musk of the moss. Yet while they captured the heady fullness of the air after rain, we were missing the fresh, sweet burst that appears just as the rain has passed.

The solution came in the form of rosewater. For some time we have been hoping to experiment with replacing the base of pure water in our fragrances with scented water and Autumn 20 gave us this chance - we are delighted with the result and equally happy to be using a byproduct of the rose extraction process.


Autumn 20 is a Ffern organic eau de parfum. This natural fragrance aims to recreate petrichor - the scent of earth after rain. A rich fragrance, it centres rose against spicy notes of olibanum and black pepper and herbaceuous notes such as bay, davana and patchouli.

Autumn 20

Spring 25

In Spring 19, pink pepper, vetiver and petitgrain took center stage. We were seeking something clean and vivid. After the release, our vision evolved. What if the greens came to the fore? What if we heightened the bergamot, and quiteneted the dryer notes, just a little? It's this vision that we worked on throughtout the year, and which has become Spring 20. The lush greenenss of the Ferula Gummosa has strengthened and is joined by a new ingredient: Basil grand vert. In the base, we've added a Gran Chaco guaiacwood. This aromatic and woody note extends that dry / lush balance through to the end. 


Notes of ferula gummosa, green mandarin, basil and guiacwood make Ffern's Spring 20 eau de parfum smell like a spring afternoon. Made with natural ingredients, this delightful fragrance is organic and vegan. 

Spring 20

Autumn 19 is an organic eau de parfum made with natural ingredients by Ffern. This autumnal fragrance features olibanum as a top note, moving to mid notes of black pepper and patchouli and base notes of cinnamon, oakmoss and vetiver. 

Autumn 19

In late spring the elder tree blooms. Umbels of delicate, cloud-like flowers, that speckle the hedgerows and perfume the lanes with something sweet, green, lightly floral and sharp.

This season we have collaborated with Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell to create our most culinary fragrance yet: Spring 22.

In the summer of 2021 we visited Skye’s restaurant, Spring in Somerset House. Against the delicious olfactory backdrop of her kitchen, we discussed the shared artistry of a chef and nose; how each works to create a lively interplay between the finest natural ingredients. 

We talked with Skye about our concept for last year’s fragrance - the freshness of a springtime greenhouse - from which we were eager to bring forward the light, floral notes, while building upon the culinary elements of basil and pink peppercorn.

Skye’s thoughts turned at once to two ingredients: elderflower, the floral embodiment of soft Maytime breezes; and green gooseberry for its sharp and bittersweet tang which, though belonging to the month of July, seems to encapsulate those first tender shoots of March.

Intrigued by the combination, we readily accepted the challenge. We were aware, however, that while in the kitchen, gooseberry ice cream is gooseberry ice cream, things can be more complicated in natural perfumery. Gooseberry oil cannot be extracted directly, and elderflower absolute is deep and musky, evoking hay and tobacco - far removed from those delicate, lacey umbels. Undeterred, Elodie set to work. 

First to the gooseberry. Having experimented with several ingredients, she landed upon blackcurrant bud. Though it did resemble plump, juicy gooseberry, it lacked the sharp, almost sour facet we were searching for. Sadly we had to let it go.

With the gooseberry proving elusive, Elodie moved onto the elderflower. Starting from a base of elderflower absolute, she added peppermint and lime. These enhanced the absolute, bringing a zest and lightness to its opening. We were close, but not quite there. 

After weeks of trials, Elodie made one final alteration: buchu, a diminutive plant native to the lower elevation mountains of western South Africa. The result was staggering. At once, the buchu brought to life the elderflower and even conjured our elusive gooseberry. Unexpected, but clear as day. Skye’s vision realised - an elderflower and gooseberry accord at the heart of our Spring fragrance, amidst the citrus notes, quiet florals, greens and sparkling pink peppercorn.


For their organic Spring 22 fragrance Ffern worked with the Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell (of Spring, London) to create a natural scent reminiscent of the hedgerow in late spring - notes include elderflower, bitter orange, pink peppercorn and neroli. The fragrance itself is fresh, green and lightly floral.

Spring 22

Ffern's organic Spring 19 fragrance blends nautral ingredients to evoke a springtime scene. Notes include petitgrain, pink peppercorn and bergamot. 

Spring 19

The light here is soft, pearl-like; a silvery white fading to rose and palest lilac. To the east, dark green fields run into blue-grey cliffs, dropping steeply to pebbled beaches. To the west lies a sandy bay, the waves lapping blue to the shore. Running out to sea is the famous Cobb - seen from afar, a thin line of black.

Artists and writers have long flocked to Lyme Regis, drawn by the colour and the light. But it is the air which sings on a winter’s day - clear and sweet. Layered with both land and sea, it is this scent we have captured for Winter 22.

First to the warmer notes and the welcome heat of winter sunshine. For this we turned to cardamom and clove bud - rich and spiced - and married them with patchouli and sandalwood, both earthy and a little musky, echoing the warm stone of the harbour wall.

The valley that surrounds Lyme carries with it a unique scent. Deepest green with dense, darkling winter woods, we found we could conjure it with cedar, balsam fir, oakmoss and marjoram - woody, with a touch of mint. 

Pooling in the bay before being washed out to sea, these resinous valley notes mingle with the fresh, clear air. In conjuring such freshness we looked to Winter 21 for inspiration, returning to the cool palette of lemon rind, lavender and peppermint.

In midwinter there are few flowers to be seen, and yet at Lyme we sensed a trace of them in the air, a sweetness we couldn’t quite determine. We found our answer in sweet orange and jasmine, a pairing we had used in Winter 19, our very first Ffern fragrance.

Onto the rounded, juicy notes of the sweet orange, tempered by the delicacy of the jasmine, we layered mimosa - honeyed and gently floral. This new accord brought the moreish, soft, sweet facet we had been searching for.


Inspired by a winter’s day at Lyme Regis, Ffern's organic Winter 22 fragrance is made entirely with natural ingredients. It blends citrus notes of bergamot and sweet orange with herbaceous and spicy notes. Top notes of peppermint and Sicilian lemon feel like cold air in the nose, while mossy, marine notes of seaweed and oakmoss whisper of the sea.

Winter 22

A spring morning. The air is mild and a gentle wind has lifted the sunlit haze of dawn. Clouds form, only to break against the blue. Boughs of blossom reach over the doorway to the greenhouse, quietly dropping their pink-white petals. Inside beckons, smelling of fresh soil, warm earth and new, green shoots.

It is this particular scent of an English greenhouse - at once rich, heady, lightly floral and spicy - which we have sought to capture for Spring 21. 

We began by laying the foundation: the distinctive smell of soil from which all life must come. For this we turned to vetiver, with its earthy, woody undertones and ginger, with a warm, spicy aroma - the scent of soil baking in the sun. Onto this we mixed pink pepper and basil, echoing the fresh, peppery notes of young green shoots. 
Complimenting this culinary sharpness are the soft notes of bergamot and the zest of green mandarin. In their succulence they capture the dense foliage of the greenhouse, the lagoons of emerald-grey that grow abundantly in the corners.

We brought in jasmine as a quiet reminder of the spring blossom in the garden - sweet and floral. And we grounded its delicacy with the more resinous, woody notes of cedar, a reflection of the greenhouse’s old wooden frame and the woody vines that interlace the ceiling.

For the centrepiece we chose, after many iterations, the bitter orange tree - this vivid streak of colour, a perfect counterpoint to the backdrop of green. Each element of the orange tree comes with its own unique scent. For Spring 21, we decided to incorporate them all. First the petitgrain, sharp and faintly herbal, taken from the leaves and twigs. Then the neroli, honeyed and airy, produced by steam distillation of freshly picked orange flowers. To deepen the neroli we added orange blossom absolute, created from the same flowers but with an entirely different extraction method, resulting in a more heady, richer scent. 

Finally, we turned to the rind itself - a juicy, bitter, citrus note. Once the maturation of the fragrance was complete, we even added orange blossom water instead of the traditional pure water, happily incorporating a byproduct of the steam distillation process.

The resulting scent is light, spring-like, yet full of depth.


Inspired by the scents of a springtime greenhouse, Ffern's organic Spring 21 fragrance is made with natural ingredients. Its top notes include ginger and petitgrain, progressing to mid notes of basil and neroli and ending with base notes of orange flower and vetiver.

Spring 21

In the cool dim of nightfall a wild rose blooms.

For Summer 22 we asked ourselves: how might we reinvent the floral in a perfume?

This quest for a new florality is something we have been working on for two years now. We often turn to the quiet delicacy of jasmine and neroli, but the most iconic of floral notes - namely the rose - has remained elusive, never quite fitting with our house style. 

Despite this, we seek rose out again and again. In Summer 22, we hoped it might play a role: bringing a floral succulence and depth to the scene of a late summer’s eve.

First we laid the foundation – the warm, spicy heat of baked earth. For this, as in previous summer fragrances, we looked to nutmeg’s dusty sweetness, peppery, incense-like olibanum and warm hay with its facets of tobacco and almond. Onto these notes we layered bitter orange and kumquat for their bright zest and tang – and rose absolute, heady and honeyish, reminiscent of a perfect red bloom.

Just as in previous trials, the rose overwhelmed the subtler notes in a rich, powdery sweetness. After much deliberation we concluded that the fault lay in its very perfection: there was something too clean, too cultivated about the scent of this rose. It belonged in a highly manicured garden; for it to belong in a Ffern fragrance, we would have to re-wild the rose. 

Rose absolute is often prized for its intensity, so perhaps we could find the properties we were seeking in rose otto. Also known as attar of roses, rose otto is the most expensive and prestigious of all oils (it can take 180 damask rose flowers to yield a single drop), and unlike the absolute it is inherently greener, fresher, a little more airy - already hinting at a rose that blooms _outside_ the walled garden.

In rose otto we found what we were looking for; the rose no longer railed against the other notes but settled companionably amongst them. Still there was a slight imbalance - the rose did not seem truly embedded within this summer landscape. Might it be that our rose was the rambling kind, climbing the trunk of an old oak tree?

With such an image in mind, we brought in ho wood, a sustainable alternative to rosewood that carries a depth and spice like sun-warmed bark. And geranium, a classic pairing with rose that amplifies the sharper, greener facets. At last, we had a rose at the heart of our fragrance – one that no longer looked back to traditional floral scents but took the shape of something new…


Ffern's organic Summer 22 fragrance reimagines the floral in a perfume, situating a traditional accord of luxurious rose otto and geranium amid wilder, more contemporary notes. Kumquat brings fresh citrus, nutmeg and olibanum recall the dry earth of a summer’s evening, while ho wood gives a glimpse of a great tree wreathed in roses.

Summer 22

Baked earth. Midsummer heat. A heady Tuscan afternoon. That was our vision for Summer 19. 

This year, we return to the landscape, pausing in the moment between late afternoon and early evening - when the light dims and the air begins to cool.

We’ve added Haitian vetiver and ferula gummosa to the mids and base - drawing the dry of the midday into the herbaceous tones of the evening.

The resinous notes that rise from the scorched terracotta earth linger, but are more subtle, diffused by aromatic, culinary notes of basil and coriander.

The brown eyed rock-rose is gone - in its absence, the citrus trees are a little sharper; honed by the vetiver, and made young by the green mandarin.

The flowers of the jasmine show their first signs of opening - a quiet but steady voice amidst this summer scene.

\-

The development phase of Summer 20 has been our most challenging yet. We were delighted with Summer 19, but as always, the work was not - and never will be - finished. A progression into a summer’s evening seemed a natural course. 

To begin, we worked on rebalancing the core citrus blend, amplifying the bitter orange and introducing Egyptian basil, first seen in Spring 20. This took us close, but didn’t capture the succulence of the early mediterranean evening. After many iterations, we found the solution: green mandarin. The under-ripened, floral notes of the green mandarin work alongside the neroli to bridge the gap between the baked earth and the culinary, unifying the fragrance.


Summer 20 is a Ffern organic eau de parfum inspired by the scents of a midsummer afternoon in Tuscany. Lightly spiced top notes of cinnamon leaf, lime and lemon give way to herbaceous mid notes of basil and coriander seed. At the base, benzoin Siam and vetiver bring an earth, rich quality to the frargance. 

Summer 20

High blue skies. Meadows, sweet and honeyed. A valley shaded by orange groves. Water pouring from a terracotta jug. Time passing, slow and easy.

For Summer 24, we sought to work with the hourly evolution of natural oils, capturing the scent of an entire day amongst the Tuscan hills, as it gently simmers and unfolds. 

And so we awaken to citrus top notes - lemons and blood oranges, the oil itself harvested from Sicily’s lush groves. To achieve a culinary opening accord that is distinctly Tuscan in flavour, we paired these fruits with spiced bay leaf and fennel seed, sweet and herbaceous.

Imagining the morning sun glancing off cool, fresh water, we added pink peppercorn, instantly clean and sparkling.

Noon comes, the height of the day, and with it the scent of herbs and flowers, giving out their best. The star is red champaca, a new ingredient for us. This member of the magnolia family has beautiful bright flowers, whose scent captures our deep, plush midday fragrance with its shades of green tea, champagne, honey and nectar. 

As we move into the afternoon, coriander seed, patchouli and nutmeg bring a dry, herbal accord - a bare foot pressing upon golden meadow grasses.

Evening settles. The earth is baked and cracked, the light mellow. Woodier notes join with the brown eyed rock rose, their heavier molecules reducing the volatility of the mixture and drawing out the lighter notes - so that echoes of the day’s fresh citrus acidity and sunny florals follow us long into the night.

This gentle progression of notes, quietening and coming to the fore, is a unique feature of natural perfumery, enabled by the immense molecular complexity of natural ingredients. 

This very same complexity explains the subtle ways in which the scent will adapt to the wearer, and age in the bottle - a path dictated by the particular combinations of light and temperature that your fragrance experiences. We hope you find joy in this process.


Ffern’s organic Summer 24 fragrance captures a high blue sky above meadows of wild herbs and orange groves.

Summer 24

Summer 24 captures a high blue day. Golden light on the afternoon hills. A meadow filled with wild herbs and citrus trees, deep in the valley. The scent is champagne and fruit and spices and hot earth - made from a blend of red champaca, sweet fennel seeds, blood orange and bay. 

There is a green that comes in winter: you can find it on the frost-limned needles of a pine tree, in the depths of moss, holly’s dark gloss and the silken shine of sun through ice. It is deep and inked - a darkling green - and at the edges, silver.

When we think of the season, this colour presides. And so for Winter 23, we set ourselves the challenge: could we turn colour into scent? Could we bottle winter green?

We began by selecting ingredients that carried a cool, blue-green facet: peppermint, rosemary, lavender and tarragon - the aniseed sparkle of tarragon recalling the iciness of winter air.

For the element of rich, blackish green, we turned to woody notes of balsam fir and cedar, layering these with spicy oakmoss, clove and patchouli - the dense hues of a forest in midwinter.

The combination of these ingredients did indeed evoke green - and a dark green at that - but it also felt a little flat. It was as though the scent required more layers, more mystery. After all, the winter solstice is a time when folklore and magic abound. 

To find this elusive quality, we turned to two new ingredients we have been experimenting with over the past year. Ambrette seed is a warm, ambery, pear-like note with a naturally musky edge. And osmanthus, a precious blossom prized for centuries in China, brings a blush of peach and apricot, with quiet echoes of tea.

We were delighted with the result. These two ingredients conjured the enchantment we were seeking - a shaft of sunlight through the canopy, illuminating the winter green. 


Winter 23 is an organic eau de parfum made by the fragrance house Ffern. Currently available exclusively to members of the Ffern ledger.

Winter 23

We are standing by a sun-dazzled estuary, looking out across the water meadows. The shallows are shining silver and the ancient woodlands that run down to the water’s edge are scorched with gold. The sky is a haze of blue and now and then we catch a hint of coast, carried on the gentlest breeze.

The air, on this late September afternoon in Ruan Lanihorne, Cornwall, swells with the scent of early autumn: the earthiness of the woodland floor, the sweetness of the meadow grasses and the freshness of the sea. It is a scent memory, rich and complex, to which we have returned again and again. For Autumn 21, we have sought to bring it to life.

First to the woods and the dense tapestry of sylvan notes. In recreating this we looked to oakmoss and vetiver, earthy and green, and the woody, resinous facet of cedar. To add depth, we layered patchouli with myrrh - both warm and darkly sweet.

Ruan Lanihorne is a place through which water flows. It is where the Ruan River meets the Fal and, at high tide, where the sea runs inland. The water here has a distinctive timbre, at once brackish, clear and crisp. After many iterations we found it through an accord of seaweed, cardamom and lemon.

The water meadow was perhaps the hardest element of all. The end of summer had carried with it many of the wildflowers but the outlines of irises remained, hidden amongst the grasses. Warmed by the sun, these grasses seemed to echo the heady aroma of a summer’s day and so we chose to weave them into the fragrance itself - returning to the hay absolute of Summer 21 and marrying it with the sweet, herbaceous notes of hyssop, clary sage, tarragon and coriander seed.

Autumn 21 has become a journey through scent, to a singular moment, belonging to a certain place. We very much hope that we have been able to take you there with us and, as ever, look forward to hearing your thoughts.


Ffern's organic fragrance Autumn 21 was inspired by the village of Ruan Lanihorne, Cornwall, in early autumn. Sylvan base notes of oakmoss, vetiver and cedar support a lighter marine accord of cardamom, lemon and seaweed, while sweet herbaceous notes capture the scent of water meadows.

Autumn 21

Snick, sweep, smooth-sharp, flow. The ice is an extension of the sky, stretching away from thin blades to a distant shore. A golden moon is rising, its glimmer catching the surface.

For Winter 25, we have imagined a figure skating through this moonlit landscape of wild ice and frozen forests. The notes revealing themselves as she glides.

First, the cold. That clear, crisp burst that comes with the initial frost of the season. For this we developed a winter accord of peppermint, eucalyptus and lavender - harnessing the unique, nose-chilling qualities of these ingredients.

Then, the fluttering snow, cold petals brushing a cheek, holding their shapes on the sleeve of a coat. Here we recalled Winter 24 and its bold central accord: precious and powdery Rose de Mai, blended with sharper palmarosa. This pairing was a great favourite with you, our ledger members, and we have loved returning to it: our rose amid snow.

Foundations laid, we imagined movement, reaching for the dazzle of pink peppercorn and cool Sicilian lemon, like skates sparkling in the moonlight. But there is also something darker in our scene, the idea of a slumbering forest at night.

For this shadowed depth we reached for saffron, with its almost leathery inflection. A top note, saffron’s amber spice coloured the opening as well as the heart notes - and we brought in brown-eyed rock rose to carry this element through to the base.

As our skater brushes through the trees, the scent of pine rises, resin sticking to her sleeve. Red cedar and vetiver captured our sylvan element - an enchanted forest, limned in icy light.


Ffern's natural Winter 25 fragrance centres a cold rose set amongst a frozen forest scene.

Winter 25

There is a tree much-prized in China. It grows in almost every garden, and in the eighth month of the year it blooms - in time for the Harvest Festival and its bright full moon. This tree has slender branching limbs and pointed leaves like its cousin, the olive. Among them nestle tiny yellow flowers, the size of a grain of rice. In Chinese mythology it is self-healing, a magical tree that grows on the moon. If you chop it down, it grows again. 

For many Chinese, osmanthus is the most evocative scent in the world - much more than the sum of its parts. This heady fragrance calls to mind the sweet, animalic note of apricots, the syrupy freshness of peach, a delicate hint of tea - opening up into the smooth creamy comfort of milk, with even a dash of violet. But osmanthus also summons memories of a time of year, its stories and gatherings. 

Though in China osmanthus blossom comes in autumn, for us its stone fruit, tea-like scent is evocative of late summer in Europe. We used it for the first time in Winter 23 as a gentle accent. But for Summer 23 we wanted to celebrate its full-bodied beauty, that slightly musky scent that comes with the early harvest. 

We have perfected the base for our Summer fragrances over several years - a squeeze of citrus, a blush of florals and a hot, dry sprinkle of spices and amber. 

For this year, Summer 23, we played with this formula to create a fragrance that evokes the ache of the end of the season - the final days of summer, their twilit hours, their peach-coloured skies. 


Summer 23

A match flares; the fizz of sulphur burns out into beeswax, soft honey and smoke. In the grate last night’s embers gently smoulder. Through the window overlooking the valley, ringing with gold, comes the sun, a fat slice of butter.

Set deep in the Dorset countryside, this is the home of cook Julius Roberts, our collaborator for Autumn 23. Surrounded by orchards, the scent of windfall apples is sharp and sweet. It mingles with the earthiness of vegetable patches and the jammy, grassy tones of hay - the bales prepared for Julius’s young goats that bound around the farm. 

It was amidst this scene that we found ourselves last year, collecting scent profiles that would shape the Autumn 23 fragrance.

The best thing, Julius told us, was the fig tree. We found it growing against the southern wall, below an open window, its waxy leaves a heartstopping green between the smooth grey boughs. The figs themselves have long since been plucked and eaten, but the scent of the leaves is emerald, clear and wild - holding traces of the delicious fruit.

We all agreed that this should be the heart of the fragrance. But how to recreate it? Fig is a ‘mute’ plant - you cannot extract its essence. We explored this with Elodie, our nose, and after six months of exacting work we created a natural fig accord - rich and multi-faceted, it has as its stars violet leaf and tonka bean. 

To build the picture of the landscape around this fig accord, we looked to orris root and carrot seed, new ingredients for us. Orris is powdery, soft, earthy, slightly sweet, even suede-like. One of the rarest perfume ingredients, it pairs beautifully with woody, spicy carrot seed.

From here, Julius was keen to take the scent in a darker direction. To capture some of those embers in the open fireplace, the remains of autumn bonfires in the landscape. And so we turned to birch tar, an ingredient we haven’t used since Winter 21, with a distinctively smokey facet.

The result is quite different from any other Ffern fragrance - dark fruit, rich hay, a drift of smoke. A fragrance for the harvest festival.


Autumn 23

Autumn 23 has fig and iris at its heart — with notes of dark fruit, rich hay, and a drift of smoke, this is a fragrance for the harvest festival.

A rose in December is a startling sight - as though a fragment of summer has appeared, fully formed, in the heart of winter. 

This image stemmed from a favourite poem, ‘Snow’ by Louis MacNeice. A winter scene that balances a few simple, sensual details: the bubbling fire, the tangerine, the bay window and, of course, the snow and the roses. For Winter 24, we wondered if we could bring this scene to life.

As the poem layers images, we layered scents. First the central rose/snow accord. For this we landed on Rose de Mai, a pink bloom picked only in May. The petals are gathered at dawn, before they can be bruised by the sun. The resulting absolute\* is incredible - floral, dewy, a touch of wood, honey-sweet and airy.

To temper the warmth of the rose we experimented with cool, herbaceous notes - peppermint, eucalyptus, tarragon, rosemary. These have a direct cooling effect on the nose and at once placed our rose in a different landscape.

We were still lacking the powdery softness of snow. After much searching we found it in palmarosa, a relative of lemongrass that nonetheless carries distinctively rosy facets and gestures to the light texture of freshest snow.

We then brought in sweet orange, lemon and bergamot, their citrus notes balancing the rose with a little sharpness. Sweet orange in particular has that scent that comes when you break into the skin of a tangerine, lingering for hours on your fingertips.

For the finishing touch, we wanted to capture the fire and the poem’s celebratory tone. This came with the spiced, wintry scents of clove, juniper and balsam fir. They brought richness to the blend, and heat, like something warm cupped in the palm of your hand.

\*An **absolute** is the most aromatic form of natural oils, obtained from petals or plants by solvent extraction.


Ffern’s organic Winter 24 fragrance captures the scent of a rose amid snow.

Winter 24

Our first Rose de Mai fragrance, Winter 24 sets this previous note amongst eucalyptus, juniper and rosemary - capturing the scent of a rose amid snow. 

The Scottish Highlands in winter are a wild and elemental place. Snow gleams white atop blue-black 
mountains; curves of glassy water rush over rocky beds; juniper bushes grow low, bent by the wind and birch trees stand tall, silhouetted against the tawny greens of tumbling hills. The air, pure and clear, is crisp and bitterly cold.


For Winter 21, it is the unique quality of this highland air which we have sought to capture; lacking in moisture it hangs like silk, allowing each note to sing with greater clarity.

\-

To begin, we set about building a cool, fresh palette. For this we turned to lemon, eucalyptus, peppermint and lavender. Though removed from the Scottish landscape, all bring with them an innate cooling effect. Onto this backdrop we layered the scent of juniper - herbaceous and spicy, like crushed black pepper - and the woody, resinous notes of fir balsam and cedar, with their distinctive evergreen edge.


Threading through this land are sky-blue streams. Composed from falling rain, and filtered by rock, they run seawards with gathering strength. As they go, they offer up the smell of wet pebbles and dense, damp earth. To emulate this, we married oakmoss with tarragon and seaweed. This accord created an earthy, succulent and herbal aroma.
Painting this highland scene was an enjoyable task. Yet the more we explored it, the more there seemed an absence. Both the scene and scent were lacking. Perhaps, to counter the cold mineral air, we needed some warmth, some comfort amidst the hostile terrain. And so we began to imagine a cabin in the distance, 
a rising plume of smoke.
 

We experimented with birch tar - full bodied and peaty, like an old whisky - and combined it with the spicy notes of cardamom, clove buds and a hint of patchouli. Together, they would suggest the familiar warmth of a cabin interior. The result was just as we had hoped - providing a foil to the cool citrusy background, and balancing the fragrance.


Ffern's organic Winter 21 fragrance is inspired by the winter landscape of the Cairngorms, Scotland. Top notes of peppermint and sweet orange fade into mid notes of eucalyptus and juniper. The fragrance ends on the smoky notes of birch tar and seaweed. 

Winter 21

If you had to choose one flower of spring, which would it be? For us, this was an easy answer: the narcissus.

First, the emerging stem, almost white against the dark, damp earth. Then the leaves, clean and symmetrical. And finally the nodding bud, bursting to reveal a golden corona, a ruff of six creamy petals - and a heady scent that drifts through the meadows, the woods and along the riverbank. 

The scent of narcissus absolute is sweet and herbaceous, a little like honeyed jasmine. But there is a depth to it, with warm hay and a hint of tobacco rounding out the edges, that makes this an unusual and rewarding floral to work with. A base note, it may take a few minutes to awaken - soft, polleny and undeniably green. 

For Spring 23, we took narcissus as our starting point - and from it, we grew a landscape. The woods came forth in petitgrain, cedar and vetiver. Ginger and basil grand vert (favourite ingredients amongst our spring fragrances) brought earthiness and spice, balanced by the sunshine notes of bergamot and green mandarin.

Timut pepper is a new ingredient which we have been waiting to use for some time now. Sharp, herbaceous, but with a light citrus undertone, it pairs beautifully with orange blossom water\*\*. We found a perfect place for it within Spring 23, where it brought a delicious crispness to the fragrance, enlivening its quieter notes, making it sparkle.


Spring 23

Summer 19 is an organic eau de parfum by Ffern. Made with natural ingredients, it is inspired by the scents of summer. Top notes of cypress leaf, lime and olibanum give way to spicy mid notes of nutmeg and coriander seed. Base notes include brown-eyed rockrose, which produces the amber resin labdanum. 

Summer 19

Ffern's Winter 20 is an organic eau de parfum made with natural ingredients and essential oils. This seasonally inspired fragrance moves from herbal top notes of tarragon and rosemary to warm mid notes of nutmeg and bergamot, and on to earthy base notes of oakmoss, cinnamon and vetiver. 

Winter 20

_A misted morning in the herb garden. Golden droplets gleam on stems._

In a gently sloping valley south of Somerset’s Quantock Hills lies a biodynamic herb farm. Come September, it brims with sunset colours - echinacea pink, cornflower blues, the blush of marshmallow and calendula’s deep, burnt orange. Rows of cool lavender and bay frame the borders. 

The scent of the garden alone is spectacular, but on days when there is a light breeze it is made all the more complex by the addition of dried spices - cardamom, cumin, clove. These spices, gathered from organic fields around the world and used in blends by the herb farm, bring a warmth to the olfactory landscape, drifting into the green-gold of the surrounding countryside. 

Just along the lane from the herb farm is the Ffern studio, and this heady mingling of herbs & spice has long provided inspiration for our fragrances. For Autumn 22, we decided to recreate it.

We began with a literal interpretation - layering bay, basil, coriander, lavender, cardamom and clove onto a woody base. With the hope of introducing a fresh facet, we then turned to elemi, a pale yellow oil derived from the elemi tree. 

Elemi is a new ingredient for Ffern and hard to pinpoint. It is certainly lemony but also has a green spiciness, like thyme or myrtle, and carries echoes of tea rose. We knew from previous experiments that it pairs beautifully with ginger, so included this here. But we went one step further by adding grapefruit - the light, herbaceous citrus note amplifying elemi’s sparkle.

We were almost there, but something was still missing - a darker note, the call of autumn. After several weeks of experimentation we found it, somewhat unexpectedly, in black tea, another ingredient new to Ffern. Our black tea extract is made from a classic blend of teas from Ceylon, China and India and the aroma is dry and leafy - bringing a smoky depth to the fragrance, both familiar and strange. 

It was the black tea that came to fully realise our vision; transporting us momentarily, like the myriad scents of the herb garden, to the other side of the world.


The organic fragrance Autumn 22 by Ffern reflects the scent of a misted herb garden at dawn, on the cusp between summer and autumn - the first chill just sharpening the air. Citrus and herbal notes of grapefruit, elemi, bay and lavender are underscored by a smoky trace of black tea.

Autumn 22

Ffern's organic Winter 19 fragrance uses natural essential oils to create an eau de parfum inspired by the scents of winter. It blends notes of sweet orange, jasmine and lavender. 

Winter 19

At Ffern, we use a rose absolute from the Damask rose (also known as Rose Isparta), the queen of flowers, grown in southwest Turkey - a region renowned for its cultivation of this flower. The production of the rose concrete is carried out on site, after which it is sent to Seville, where it is made into rose absolute by a family-run distillery founded at the turn of the twentieth century.⁠


Rose- a fragrance ingredient from South West Turkey, Turkey, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Rose

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 1930’s and have been mastering the craft of producing citrus oils ever since. They are always our first port of call when it comes to sourcing bergamot and other citruses for our fragrances.


Bergamot rind- a fragrance ingredient from Calabria, Italy, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Bergamot rind

You may know palmarosa best from its use in verbena teas - the flat leaves of this dense grass produce a powerful lemony odour when rubbed, making its relation to citronella and lemongrass clear. Palmarosa grows wild in the Himalayas and in the Radjmahal Mountains on India’s Afghan border, where it is harvested by indigenous tribes. The grasses are then dried for a week to increase the essential oil yield before undergoing steam distillation. The oil is powerful and herbaceous, with a strong rosy note that lends it the ‘rosa’ half of its name. Though sometimes used as a cheaper substitute for rose oil, at Ffern we use it to complement our rose oils, bringing a clean, wild edge to the accord. 


Palmarosa- a fragrance ingredient from Radjmahal Mountains, India, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Palmarosa

For a few brief weeks in early spring, the hills around France’s perfume capital, Grasse, are splashed with sunshine yellow; the mimosa trees are in flower. Mimosa is a kind of acacia native to Australasia. Wildly popular in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, mimosa has a powerful scent - fresh, floral, a little honeyed, with a powdery facet. Because of its power, it’s used with a lighter touch today than it used to be, but is still a keystone ingredient for perfumiers. 


Mimosa- a fragrance ingredient from Atlantic Coast, Morocco, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Mimosa

Birch tar is produced by the rectification of crude birch oil, which is itself obtained by the slow destructive distillation of birch bark - a process in which the decomposition of the organic material is achieved by heating it to a high temperature. The birch bark we source is a byproduct of the wood industry in the USA, with the distillation process also taking place in the USA.

Birch tar is produced by the rectification (purification by re-distillation) of crude birch oil, which is itself obtained by the slow destructive distillation of birch bark (a process in which the decomposition of the organic material is achieved by heating it to a high temperature). The birch bark we use is a byproduct of the wood industry in the USA, with the distillation process also taking place in the USA. 

Birch tar, which has been used for medicinal purposes since the late Paleolithic era, has a lovely smokiness to it with a woody, almost leathery undertone - a little like an old, full-bodied brandy.


Birch tar- a fragrance ingredient from Virginia, USA, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Birch tar

Grapefruit oil is cold pressed from the fruit’s golden rind. Native to the Caribbean, grapefruit is thought to have been born from an accidental union of pomelo, the largest citrus fruit, and sweet orange. An eighteenth-century Welsh sailor described it as one of the ‘seven wonders of Barbados,’ but it was not scientifically considered distinct from pomelo until the mid-nineteenth century. The essential oil is (unsurprisingly) pretty citrusy and does not differ greatly from orange and lemon oils. However, it has a distinctively herbaceous side, almost woody — a little like vetiver — and a hint of green, slightly minty. 


Grapefruit rind- a fragrance ingredient from Florida, USA, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Grapefruit rind

Cardamom is a tall, reed-like perennial shrub native to South Indian and Sri Lanka. The mature fruit takes the form of a capsule-like pod that holds within it around twenty small, aromatic seeds. The cardamom we use at Ffern is grown in Guatemala and the essential oil is extracted by steam distillation of the seeds. The fragrance is fresh and citrusy whilst possessing a spicy warmth. 


Cardamom seed- a fragrance ingredient from Alta Verapaz cloud forests, Guatemala , used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Cardamom seed

Our balsam fir absolute is extracted from wild-grown needles east of Calgary, in Canada. The scent is often compared to that of jam: intense, very long lasting, sweet, fresh and foresty all at once.


Balsam fir- a fragrance ingredient from Alberta, Canada, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Balsam fir

With one of the most beautiful Latin names, _Artemisia dracunculus_ is also known as biting dragon, dragon plant and estragon. Our tarragon is grown in the South of France. The plants do not produce fertile seeds - instead the roots are hand-split in early spring. In June, the leaves are trimmed and the oil distilled. Our variety has a distinctive aniseed facet, with an earthy undertone.⁠
⁠


Tarragon leaf- a fragrance ingredient from Le Midi, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Tarragon leaf

Davana belongs to the silver-leafed _Artemisia_ family, and many tiny yellow flowers grow against its soft greenery. It is a fragrant herb with an elusive scent, said to smell completely different on each person who wears it. Native to India, the dried herb has a sweet, dried-fruit aroma that is reminiscent of tea. 


Davana- a fragrance ingredient from Andhra Pradesh, India, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Davana

To make neroli, blossoms from the bitter orange tree are soaked in water before being steam distilled - the water left behind is orange flower water. For hundreds of years, this treasured ingredient brought a delicate, floral hint of orange to Middle Eastern sweets and drinks. Its popularity as a fragrance and flavouring grew in Europe during the Renaissance, so much so that bitter orange began to be cultivated in the South of France expressly to make it. 


Orange flower water- a fragrance ingredient from Cape Bon, Tunisia Morocco Blend, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Orange flower water

Oakwood serves as a powerful fixative in perfumery, anchoring a fragrance and extending its longevity. Invoking the scents of the forest floor, the fireplace, or perhaps the richness of old wine barrels, oakwood brings a unique, enchanting quality to perfumery. Its multifaceted aroma profile allows it to blend seamlessly with woody, spicy and floral notes.
We harvest our oakwood from the vast forests of the Allier region in central France, where production is carefully regulated to ensure sustainable harvesting practices. Only mature trees are felled, helping to maintain the balance of the forest ecosystem. Our CO2 extraction method preserves the natural aroma of the wood without degrading its components.


Oakwood- a fragrance ingredient from Allier, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Oakwood

Our red cedar wood (also known as red juniper) is grown and harvested in its native Virginia, USA, and principally used for cabinet making. 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. 


Red cedar- a fragrance ingredient from Virginia, USA, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Red cedar

We harvest Douglas fir needles in Canada and transport them to France, where we extract the absolute. The braches are cut in the morning, for as they warm up during the day they release more of their precious oil. The note is very long-lasting, balsamic and fresh.


Douglas fir- a fragrance ingredient from British Columbia, Canada, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Douglas fir

The cognac oil we have sourced is a byproduct of winemaking in Romania - a land with its own distinctive climate and soil, which gives the cognac oil a certain character. The oil itself is obtained by distillation during the fermentation of the grape juice.⁠ As a base note, it is dry, green and slightly fruity. 


Cognac oil- a fragrance ingredient from Transylvania, Romania, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Cognac oil

Our black tang seaweed, often known as bladder wrack, is sustainably harvested from the coast of Brittany in France. After harvesting, the seaweed is dried before being ground into a powder. A solvent is then extracted from the powder to create the seaweed absolute.


Black tang seaweed- a fragrance ingredient from Brittany, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Black tang seaweed

Red juniper, also called red cedar, is a coniferous evergreen native to Northeastern USA. We harvest red cedar in Virginia, when the plant is young, and steam distil the wood to extract a pure red juniper oil. 


Red juniper- a fragrance ingredient from Virginia, USA, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Red juniper

Myrrh is a bitter-tasting gum taken from the small thorn tree _Commiphora myrrha_. These flowering trees can be found amid dry, rocky hills - in Ffern’s case, our myrrh is harvested in Somalia. A highly valued perfume in the ancient world, myrrh of course features in the Christian Nativity as a gift of the Magi - but now it is of little value, used rarely for its fragrance and more often for its slight antiseptic and astringent qualities. Yet it has a lovely warm feel, bringing a spicy, balsamic note to the heart of a fragrance. 


Myrrh- a fragrance ingredient from Almería, Spain, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Myrrh

Peppermint is a cross between watermint and spearmint, a familiar sparkly note with, as you’d expect, a slight peppery edge. This ingredient brings a distinctive ‘cold’ facet to fragrances, similar to eucalyptus. We partner with farmers in India's northerly 'Mint Regions' to grow and steam distill our high grade peppermint oil.


Peppermint- a fragrance ingredient from Uttar Pradesh, India, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Peppermint

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


Coriander seed- a fragrance ingredient from Black Earth Region, Ukraine, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Coriander seed

All our fragrances are made with an organic grain alcohol base. A blend of common and spelt organic wheats are quintuple distilled at our north Italian distillery in Cuneo, beneath Monte Viso, to yield a 198 proof perfumers' alcohol. 


Soft wheat- a fragrance ingredient from Cunea, Italy, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Soft wheat

Sandalwood has long been prized for its soothing, sweet fragrance. Arab perfumiers have been using it for thousands of years - powdered, diffused in oil, or burnt as incense - and it is often used in spiritual or religious practices, particularly in India. Sandalwood is a slow-growing parasitic plant that can reach heights of ten metres. Its sweet, woody, rich scent is extracted by steam distilling wood or root chippings. Due to its versatility as an ingredient (it's an excellent fixative, too), sandalwood is immensely popular and vulnerable to over-harvesting - thankfully, new groves are being successfully planted and harvested in Australia, heralding a more sustainable future for sandalwood production. 


Sandalwood- a fragrance ingredient from Western Australia, Australia, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Sandalwood

Cinnamon has a long history as a valuable and sacred spice. It was imported to ancient Egypt from its native Sri Lanka as early as 2000 BCE. Our cinnamon is grown along the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, where sandy soils lead to higher quality oil. To produce the oil we use in our fragrances, the bark is stripped, hung to dry for 5 days, and steam distilled.


Ceylon cinnamon bark- a fragrance ingredient from Southwest coast, Sri Lanka, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Ceylon cinnamon bark

The name rosemary, _romarin_ in French, is beleived to come from the Latin _ros marinus_, which means ‘dew of the sea.’ This refers to its abundance on Mediterranean coastlines and islands, where it grows wild, scenting the air with its cool freshness. In Tunisia, wild rosemary is so beloved that it’s protected by the government. At Ffern, we work with a local firm to bid on wild harvesting rights, and extract the oil at source.


Rosemary- a fragrance ingredient from South, Tunisia, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Rosemary

Ffern key lime is grown in the north of Peru. The fruits are harvested in the afternoon to avoid the oil loss caused by their early morning turgor. Next, they are passed through a pelatrice, and the gathered liquid is centrifuged to obtain a pure lime rind oil. 


Key lime rind- a fragrance ingredient from Veracruz, Mexico, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Key lime rind

The composition of a basil essential oil can vary greatly with the with the site of cultivation and the specificities of the growing method. After some deliberation, we settled on an Egyptian basil 'grand vert', renowned for its high linalool composition and distinctive aniseed notes. The leaves are cut and immediately distilled - if they are allowed to dry, the scent is largely lost.


Basil grand vert- a fragrance ingredient from Vert-le-Grand, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Basil grand vert

Of all the ferulas, ferula gummosa is prized for its intense, green parsley-scented root resin - galbanum. After three years growing in the foothills of the Alborz in Northern Iran, wild Ffern ferula roots are hand-scored with a traditional wrought iron galbanum tool. The score fills with resin over a three day period, dries, and only then is harvested. Each plant will produce galbanum for another four years before the resin yield falls to zero.


Ferula gummosa root- a fragrance ingredient from Alborz, Iran, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Ferula gummosa root

Blackcurrant bud- a fragrance ingredient from , , used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Blackcurrant bud

For our Autumn 23 fragrance, we collaborated with chef and farmer Julius Roberts - when visiting his Dorset farm in early autumn, he showed us a dazzling fig tree, the fruits long gone but the leaves still bold and bright. We knew this had to be at the heart of the fragrance we were making together. But fig is a ‘mute’ plant - you cannot extract its essence. We explored this with Elodie, our nose, and after six months of exacting work we created a natural fig accord. 
Blackcurrant bud, osmanthus and petitgrain bring the essential fruity facets, while red cedar captures the wood of the tree's branches. Davana and galbanum are spiced and herbal, and violet leaf carries the delicate florality of the scent. Finally, tonka bean brings vanilla sweetness, its 90% coumarin content gesturing to the jammy quality of ripe figs. The result is rich and intoxicating, a glorious celebration of the fig leaf. 


Fig leaf accord- a fragrance ingredient from , Various, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Fig leaf accord

This sought-after perfumer’s ingredient is literally worth its weight in gold. Native to the eastern Himalayas, the osmanthus tree is a small shrub with evergreen leaves and pale spring flowers that smell of peaches and apricots - it is these flowers from which osmanthus oil is extracted. The scent is particularly adored in China, where legend has it that a huge osmanthus tree grows on the moon, along with the fairy Chang E, her pet Jade Rabbit and the giant Wu Chang.


Osmanthus flower- a fragrance ingredient from Anhui, China, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Osmanthus flower

Like pink and Szechuan peppers, timut pepper is not really a pepper at all - but a berry, plucked from the steep mountain sides of the Mahabharats in southern Nepal. It is made up of a hard, bitter black seed (this is removed before being used for cooking) encased in a pericarp, a casing a bit like the zest of a tangerine. These little berries have made an exciting entrance into the perfume world only recently. Their complex citrus sparkle is, for many people, akin to grapefruit or dried peel, bringing a light, fresh spice to the opening of a fragrance. Ffern timut pepper is harvested in Nepal and extracted using the supercritical CO2 process. 


Timut pepper- a fragrance ingredient from Mahabharat Mountain Range, Nepal, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Timut pepper

The damask rose has long been a symbol of the city of Damascus in Syria. Thought to be the oldest inhabited city in the world, Damascus was long known as the fragrant city, or _al-Fayḥāʾ_, for the stunning orchards and gardens that surrounded it. Things are sadly different now - but the legend of the damask rose lives on and has been inherited by the Rose Valley in Bulgaria, where our roses are grown and distilled. They are hand-picked in the early mornings and must be quickly distilled - some pickers even take their copper stills to the fields, heating the roses over wood fires to extract the few precious drops of ‘liquid gold’ that each bloom yields. 


Rose otto- a fragrance ingredient from Rose Valley, Bulgaria, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Rose otto

The common name geranium actually encompasses two kinds of flower - geraniums and pelargoniums. The one we use is _Pelargonium graveolens_, known as the rose geranium, and it is a wonderful friend to the perfumer. Paired with damask rose, it brings a lighter, brighter facet that is almost citrusy; this can lift the powdery richness of the rose, bringing texture and depth to the accord. Legend has it that the rose geranium was created when the prophet Mohammed, after bathing in a nearby river, laid his shirt upon a mallow branch to dry - the mallow was so honoured that it transformed itself into a plant with beautiful flowers and fragrant leaves: the rose geranium. 


Rose geranium- a fragrance ingredient from Nile Valley, Egypt, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Rose geranium

Our _Lavandula angustifolia_ is grown by a network of family farms in the hills of Provence at 600-1500m above sea level. It is distilled locally using Joseph Robert’s pioneering solvent extraction method. This much-loved herb is particularly beloved of Provençals, who have been growing it for centuries, and it is often called the soul of the region. 


Lavender- a fragrance ingredient from Provence, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Lavender

This member of the magnolia family has beautiful bright orange and yellow petals, attracting bees and birds with its fragrant flowers. Its oil, extracted using a solvent extraction method, is red, and produces a scent that is sweet, floral and fruity. Our red champaca is sourced from the Indian Himalayan Region, where the flowers are often floated in bowls of water to scent a room. 


Red champaca flower- a fragrance ingredient from Indian Himalayan Region, India, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Red champaca flower

Buchu leaf oil is made by drying and steam distilling the leaves from the small, thorny buchu bush. Native to South Africa, buchu has long been used by indigenous communities there for a range of medicinal purposes. It grows wild near streams in the fynbos, a belt of coastal shrubland in the Eastern and Western Cape with a Mediterranean climate. It has a bittersweet, blackcurrant tang with a hint of mint. 


Buchu leaf- a fragrance ingredient from South Africa, Cape Peninsula, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Buchu leaf

Jonquil daffodil- a fragrance ingredient from Grasse, France, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Jonquil daffodil

Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice - in fact, there was a time long ago when it was more expensive than gold. We work with saffron growers in Kozani, in Northern Greece, which is the on only area in Greece where saffron is grown. It’s considered by many to be the best in the world - hence its DPO (Designated Protection of Origin). 
Our saffron crocuses, or krokos, are grown by a cooperative of small farmers over about 500 acres. Each October, when the fields grow rich with purple flowers, pickers are out from dawn to dusk, carefully placing each flower in an apron or basket. The drying process is skilled, delicate and laborious, taking 20-60 days - but once this is done, the reddish-gold pistils, or stomata, can be crushed and steam-distilled, ready to continue the ancient tradition of saffron’s use in fragrance.


Saffron- a fragrance ingredient from Kozani, Greece, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Saffron

The clove tree is a tropical evergreen, lush with green leaves and reddish-brown buds which burst into many-headed white flowers. The word clove comes from Latin _clavus_, meaning nail, for the bud’s shape. It is this bud from which our fragrant clove oil is extracted, using a water distillation process. Grown in Northeastern Madagascar, the buds are removed in clusters from the tree’s branches, then hand-picked and sun-dried until they turn brown. Alongside nutmeg, black pepper, and mace, cloves were once one of the most valuable commodities in the world, prized as much for their exotic mystique as their warm, spicy aroma. 


Clove bud- a fragrance ingredient from Analanjirofo, Madagascar, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Clove bud

The name kumquat comes from a Cantonese word that means golden tangerine - and as this suggests the first reference to these powerful little fruits is from 12th-century China. The kumquat is tangy and sour with a sweet undertone, its strong flavour more than making up for its small size. It is an increasingly popular fragrance ingredient, its deep and delightful scent profile more complex than orange or lemon. Our kumquats are grown in Brazil, where the rind is cold-pressed while fresh. 


Kumquat rind- a fragrance ingredient from Bauru, Brazil, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Kumquat rind

Elemi oil is derived from the resin produced by the elemi tree, _Canarium luzonicum_. Native to the Philippines, elemi resin cannot be harvested until a tree is seven years old; from this point onwards the tree is tapped during the budding period, from May to March. An incision is made in the bark and the resin is collected using palm fronds. From this resin, the essential oil is extracted using a steam distillation method. It is spicy, a little lemony, and pairs excellently with olibanum and myrrh. 


Elemi oil- a fragrance ingredient from Malay Peninsula, Malaysia, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Elemi oil

Violet leaf- a fragrance ingredient from Nile Valley, Egypt, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.

Violet leaf

Closely related to cardamom and turmeric, our ginger root comes from Kaduna, northern Nigeria, where it is extracted using the CO2 process. This unassuming, knobbled root is packed with an earthy, hot aroma and has long been prized in traditional medicines, particularly as an aid for digestion. 

Closely related to cardamom and turmeric, ginger root is crowned by clusters of jewel-coloured flowers and green leaves. At Ffern, we source our ginger root in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, where it is extracted using the CO2 process. The unassuming, knobbled root is packed with essential oils that have an earthy, hot aroma. Ginger has long been prized in traditional medicines, particularly as an aid for digestion. 


Ginger root- a fragrance ingredient from Kaduna, Nigeria, used by the organic fragrance house Ffern.