Our fragrance is produced to a high standard, the ingredients are extracted from flowers, peels and woods using traditional methods.
People have been trying to capture the pleasant scents of nature for thousands of years. Time and again, they have discovered that the flowers, fruits and roots of plants are the most abundant sources of fragrance.
Enfleurage is the simplest, but also the most laborious and least productive method of extracting fragrances. Today, it is only used to extract very precious essences such as jasmine or tuberose. In this method, fresh flowers are placed on a sheet of glass covered with fat. The fat draws the fragrance out of the flowers in a process that can take more than two days. This is repeated for weeks, with new flowers being placed on the glass pane until the fat is saturated. In a final process, the essence is separated from the fat. What remains is a very precious, first-class fragrance.
Another method of extracting fragrances is known as cold pressing. It is used exclusively for the extraction of citrus fragrances. In cold pressing, the peel of untreated fruit is squeezed out.
The most common method of extracting essential oils is steam distillation. To extract the fragrance from the plants, crushed plant material is placed on a grid in a distillation vessel. Steam is then passed through the distillation vessel, which dissolves the essential oil from the plant material. As the steam cools, the oil separates from the water again. As this oil is usually lighter than the water, it can simply be skimmed off.
There is a method that is far more efficient than steam distillation: extraction. When this method is used, the fragrances are removed from the plants with the help of solvents. The extraction method is mainly used when processing plants that cannot be distilled due to their sensitivity to temperature. However, the yield from extraction is much higher than from steam distillation.
To obtain 1 kilogram of rose essence, around 5 tons of freshly picked rose petals are required for distillation, whereas only 2 to 3 tons are needed for extraction. This example illustrates why 1 ml of essential oil can cost more than 50 euros.
