Spring 26

White thyme oil comes from the same species as true thyme. Its name reflects its aromatic profile: the oil undergoes a double steam-distillation process that softens its sharper notes, creating a lighter, cleaner ‘white’ character. The result is an aromatic, herbaceous oil with a delicate clarity.

Peppermint is a cross between watermint and spearmint, a familiar sparkly note with a slight peppery edge. We partner with farmers in India's northerly Mint Regions to grow and steam distill our high grade peppermint oil.

Valerian is a flowering herb whose essential oil is extracted from the plant’s root. On its own, its scent is powerful and is therefore rarely used in perfumery. Our nose, Elodie, uses the oil with careful restraint, for the distinctive herbaceous and earthy depth it lends to a composition.

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.

Native to the Philippines, Elemi cannot be harvested until its tree is seven years old. During the wet season, an incision is made in the tree bark and the resin is collected using palm fronds. From this, the essential oil is extracted using steam distillation.

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.

Ffern’s 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.⁠

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.

Ffern petitgrain is harvested in Paraguay from a hybrid tree - a cross between a sweet *Citrus x sinensis* and a bitter *Citrus x aurantium*. Grown by a network of family farmers, the tree’s leaves and branches are cut and immediately distilled in hand built, clay sealed wooden distilleries.

Our star anise is grown in the mountains of Guangxi, China, where fertile soil and a subtropical climate have long nurtured this aromatic spice. For generations, farmers here have used traditional methods to yield fruits of the highest quality. Once harvested, these are steam distilled at source.

Our lavandin grosso essential oil is made from steam distillation.

Tuberose is an intensely-scented flower, only blooming at night when its colours are invisible to pollinators. Over the centuries, extraction of tuberose absolute has evolved significantly. At Ffern, we use solvent extraction to yield a much higher concentration of fragrance.

Ffern caraway seeds are harvested in late summer and early autumn in Oldambt, the Netherlands, where high quality and flavoursome caraway seeds have been cultivated since the Middle Ages. They are meticulously dried, crushed and expertly steam distilled.

Our 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.

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.

Our chamomile comes from the rich soils of Egypt’s Nile Valley, where wild or blue chamomile has been grown for centuries. Though the flower is white and gold, once it has undergone steam distillation the resulting oil is blue. Its warm and herbaceous scent is earthy with apple-like undertones.

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.

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.

Galbanum is a fragrant gum resin obtained from the root of the Ferula gummosa plant. The roots are hand-scored with a traditional wrought iron galbanum tool, yielding resin which hardens into small droplets to be collected and transformed into an essential oil.

The La Faces are a third-generation citrus farming family, growing our lemons on the northeastern tip of Sicily - just across the 3km straight of Messina and in sight of our bergamot on the Calabrian shores. The fruit is picked by hand, and the rinds cold pressed on site.

Our neroli oil is extracted from the blossom of bitter Seville Orange trees on Cape Bon in northern Tunisia. The blossoms are hand-picked in the spring at daybreak, once dew has formed. The flowers are immediately pressed and distilled.

Gurjun balsam is a natural resin drawn from trees of the Dipterocarpus genus, native to Southeast Asia. It’s obtained through tapping the tree bark - a traditional extraction method that allows each tree to rest and replenish for months or even years before being tapped again. It carries a woody depth with smooth, slightly leathery undertones.

Our bitter oranges are grown in a third-generation family orchard in Bauru, Brazil, where they are hand-picked in the early summer of the Southern Hemisphere. The rind is cold pressed on site to produce a juicy, uplifting oil.

Timut pepper is a berry, plucked from the steep mountains of the Mahabharats in southern Nepal. It is made up of a hard, bitter black seed encased in a pericarp casing like the zest of a tangerine. Ffern timut pepper is extracted using the CO2 process.

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.