LAVENDER OIL
what is LAVENDER ?
Natural ingredient for perfumery overview
Botanical Name: Lavandula Officinalis
Lavender Oil is steam distilled from the freshly cut flowering tops and stalks of Lavandula Officinalis, a wild-growing or cultivated plant, native to the Mediterranean countries. Distillation takes place mainly in the south of France where the plants grow at medium altitudes of this mountainous region (from 600to 1500 meters altitude). Distilleries located at high altitudes produce oils of higher ester content, not only because of the theory that the high-altitude, wild-growing plants contain more esters but also because of the fact that high-altitude distillation means lower temperature-boiling. Consequently, the distilled oil is not exposed to 100° C. hot steam, but perhaps only to 92 or 93°C. Even this small decrease in temperature means that the hydrolysis of the natural linalyl esters takes place at a much slower rate.
A rapid distillation at slightly reduced pressure (high altitude) may produce oil with nearly all the natural linalyl esters.
— Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin — S. Arctander (1961)
Botanical Name: lavandula angustifolia
The so called English Lavender is distilled from a different variety of the lavender plant. It yields an oil rich in linalool, but rather poor in linalylesters. However, it is not rough or harsh like the aspic or lavandin oils, but represents an individual type of lavender which is obviously appreciated in the country where it is a common garden plant, and where its fragrance is well-known and very popular.
The sample provided has beed distilled in Turkey, and has been submitted for analysis from Goymen Oil.
Olfactive description
fresh, aromatic, fruity (bergamot), herbaceous, camphoraceous, floral, woody.
Specific character: Aromatic
Where it grows
Grows in France 🇫🇷,
Bulgaria 🇧🇬,
Moldavia 🇲🇩,
Turkey 🇹🇷
Method of extraction
It is obtained by Steam Distillation of the fresh plant.
How or when to use it
It is used extensively in colognes (citrus-colognes or the well-known lavender-waters), in fougères, chypres, ambers, and countless floral, semi-floral, or particularly in non-floral perfume types. The oil blends well with bergamot and other citrus oils, clove oils (for “Rondeletia” type perfumes), flouve, Liatris, oakmoss, patchouli, rosemary, sage clary, pine needle oils, etc. Also with amyl salicylate, coumarins, citronellol and geraniol, and their esters, heptanolide, menthyl acetate, musk ambrette, moskene, and ethylene brassylate, nopyl acetate, menthanyl acetate, isobornyl propionate, phenylacetaldehyde and its acetals in particular.
Labdanum products are excellent fixatives and the oil of Mentha Citrata can be useful for modifications.
— Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin — S. Arctander (1961)
Appearance
It is a colorless to pale yellow liquid.
Chemistry
The major components are:
Linalyl Acetate (25-45%),
Linalool (25-30%),
Camphor,
Lavandulyl Acetate (~2%),
Ocimene (5-10%),
Cineol (<1%).
Impact
Impacts in the top note.
Notes — The higher the Linalyl Acetate, the better is the quality of the product. The French Lavender is reproduced by seeds, meanwhile, the Bulgarian lavender is reproduced by clones (talea) selecting strong and good plants to reproduce it.
Lavender Oil is subject to extensive adulteration, cutting, etc. Among the most common additives or “cutting” materials are: acetylated lavandin oil, synthetic linalool, and linalyl acetate, fractions from the production of linalyl acetate from Ho Leaf Oil or Bois de Rose Oil, not to speak of the more crude additives such as terpinyl propionate, isobornyl acetate, terpineol, fractions of rosemary oil, aspic oil, lavandin oil, Bois de rose oil, trace additions of ethyl-n-amyl ketone and its homologs, etc. Lavandin Oil is produced in quantities of about 10 times that of Lavender Oil and at a fraction of the price of lavender. Strange as it may seem, this fact has indirectly caused a decrease in the adulteration and “cutting” of true lavender oil. Its price has come down to a more reasonable level again, and it is once more possible to obtain a true, genuine lavender oil. The latter oil will, however, remain a small item, and will probably eventually disappear from soap perfumery, being replaced by lavandin oil.
— Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin — S. Arctander (1961)
Fulvio Ciccolo — 2020
Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin — S. Arctander (1961)
Photo by Ghenadie Cebanu on Unsplash