Summer 26

The clementine is a citrus hybrid, born from the crossing of a willowleaf mandarin and a sweet orange. Ours are grown on the French island of Corsica, where the fruit is protected. The essential oil is extracted by cold expression of the outer peel, preserving the fruit’s vivid, natural aroma.

Our damask roses are grown in the Rose Valley in Bulgaria. 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 precious drops that each bloom yields.

Our wheat bran absolute comes from Hauts-de-France, France’s main wheat-producing region. It comes from the outer husk of the grain - a byproduct of milling - and is typically dried and warmed to draw out its scent, before being transformed into an absolute through solvent extraction. Its notes are honeyed, nutty and coumarinic.

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.

Blackcurrant bud absolute is one of the few natural fruity materials in perfumery. Harvested from new leaf buds from the blackcurrant bush, ours is grown in the historic heartland of cassis perfumery in Burgundy. New leaf buds are picked in the coldest months of winter when the plant’s aromatic compounds are most concentrated.

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’.

Our Egyptian basil grand vert is renowned for its high linalool composition and its distinctive aniseed notes. The leaves are cut and immediately distilled - if they are allowed to dry, the scent is largely lost.

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.

The frilled, lacy umbels of wild carrot create that pale, high summer froth along hedgerows, in meadows and coastal dunes - and though their roots are edible, they are not as palatable as the plant's familiar cultivar. A sweet, earthy, woody oil can be extracted from the plant's seeds.

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.

Ffern mandarins are harvested in the months before ripening. Whilst still green, they are cold pressed on site to preserve their delicate top notes. The scent is notably sharper and more floral than their ripe counterparts.

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.

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’.

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 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.

Our rock rose grows wild on the plains of Almaden de la Plata outside Seville, Spain. In late summer, the leafy stems of the plant are sickle harvested and plunged into hot carbonated water. This mixture is distilled to obtain a honeyed, amber resin - labdanum.

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.

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 galbanum essential oil is made from steam distillation.

We chose Haitian vetiver over Javan competitors for its fresh, sparkling notes, and because the root provides sustainable employment for south Haitian communities. One year after planting, the roots are excavated, washed, cut, and sun-dried before they can be steam distilled at source.