New Lilac and Jasmine Pommades!

Delicious and smooth, new and luscious. Our new Pommades are here—lilac and jasmine!

Remember, most flowers refuse to be distilled—jasmine and lilac are two of those. While some jasmines, like sambac, grandiflorum and a few others, will accept a hexane or CO2 extraction, jasmine polyanthum is not extracted, to my knowledge, anywhere, using those procedures. But all flowers can be enfleuraged.

Why?

Well, enfleurage is not really an extraction—it’s a persuasion. Almost every extraction, no matter the solvent, or process, involves taking out the fragrance, as an essential oil, an absolute, or whatever. While this is fantastic and wonderful, and gives us glorious aromatics, paths to divinity right from a bottle, not all flowers accept it. And some will accept it but only with conditions, allowing themselves to be extracted, but in disguise (tuberose et al). I’ll discuss these another time. But to bring out the true essence of the flower, to coax out the personality, the true fragrance, the soul, we must use enfleurage. Enfleurage simply invites the aroma molecules to visit, and provides them a soft and welcoming bed, a forever home, to make their own. Nothing is hurried. Over time, these aromatic molecules come over to the fats, and cling to them, staying. The flowers are changed daily, before they wilt, just after the peak freshness is imparted to the fat. It’s time and labor consuming. The process will take weeks, or longer, for the fat to be saturated with the floral aroma.

For the enfleurage oils you can find (jasmine, tuberose, gardenia and lilac,) the process continues, but with our pommades we are using the full butter extraction itself, so the entire aromatic personality arrives intact, ready to meld with you, and this is truly the height of luxury.

Finally, a word about enfleurage fat. Yes, the old French process used pig fat. It’s what they had. And no, we don’t, never have, and never would. I don’t need to explain that further, methinks. All our modern enfleurages are vegan.

So what exactly is in these pommades?

First, the jasmine! This is our gorgeous Colombian Jasmine enfleurage (Jasmine polyanthum)—a modern and vegan enfleurage using a blend of organically farmed and sustainable grown coconut, palm and jojoba, expertly blended by our Colombian fragrance friends, flower farmers and enfleurage enthusiasts.

Once in the Northeast US, the jasmine enfleurage is welcomed into a bed of organic camellia japonica oil, organic candelilla wax and vitamin E. This is an awesome body butter, a smooth and mouth-watering pommade, truly luxurious, fragrant and a textural delight.

Next, the lilac! Our Upstate New York grown and enfleuraged lilac (Syringa vulgaris,) is expertly blended into a delightful pommade, using organic candelilla wax and vitamin E.This is also a mouth-watering, textural delight. So many of us grew up with lilac season, and their unmistakable fragrance punctuated our early springs. Lilac is one of those flowers that refuses to be distilled, refuses to allow solvents to extract her, and whose wonderful complexity is so difficult to synthesize. Enfleurage is the only reasonable way to extract her scent, and here it is in a gorgeous pommade that lives up to the most discerning expectations.