Vanilla Absolute, Madagascar

Vanilla Absolute

Vanilla planifolia

Orchidaceae family

Please note this is a complicated ingredient. This vanilla is very thick and must be gently warmed before use. It will not dissolve in any fixed or carrier oil. It will dissolve partly in alcohol, but will need to be babied and persuaded as per your favorite method. 

Grown, harvested, cured, and solvent extracted in Madagascar.

This vanilla is really sweet and delightful. Softer than you usually find with the Plantifolia.

Vanilla is the fruit from a magnificent orchid, a very high maintenance, highly improbable orchid, a climbing vine, that needs to use another tree or something it can grip on to. It’s not a parasite, though. Vanilla is native to Mexico (which also brings us Cocoa.)

Then it demands to be hand pollinated (except in Mexico because humming birds do it there,) and is a slow maturing fuss budget every step of the way. The plants are actually also hand pollinated in Mexico, of course. 

After vanilla flowers are hand pollinated. The flower produces a fruit which matures after 8 or 9 months on the plant. It’s harvested just before it matures, when it’s still green, odorless and bitter tasting. Then. They must be cured, much like tobacco. They are cured for about 3 months, and the point of it is to stimulate an enzymatic process, so that the pods become aromatic and slowly turn brown. After curing, they’re graded according to length and appearance.

Arctander says

About the fruit/pods: Vanilla from Madagascar, which Arctander refers to as Bourbon vanilla, just as with the La Réunion pods are chocolate-brown, semi-dry or somewhat moist, dull or glossy! The aroma is extremely rich, sweet, somewhat-woody and animal, tobacco-like and very deep in its balsamic, sweet-spicy body-note. Vanillin is not necessarily a part of this bouquet—the moister the fruit, the more vanillin in the odor. The drier the fruits, the more perceptible is the odor of the non-steam-volatile, high-boiling aromatic principles.

About vanilla absolute: The highest concentrate of vanilla aroma is found in the absolute. But also, vanilla absolute does not represent the total aroma of the vanilla fruit. (Remember this book was published in 1960) It is a dark brown to clear viscous liquid of very rich, sweet, and true-to-nature odor. An odor-flavor description would not be correct without the remark that the flavor is strongly dependent upon the type of vanilla used in the extraction.

In perfumery, vanilla will give an unsurpassed richness and depth to many types of sweet-floral or heavy-ambre bases, oriental perfumes, etc, where they blend excellently with sandalwood, opoponax, vetiver, all the spice oils, ginger, etc. Vanilla’s tenacity is outstanding, and the unusual uniformity of the fragrance through the slow evaporation make the vanilla extracts the highly interesting perfume materials they are.

You can read a ton about vanilla, from Arctander’s book, and many others. If you fall in love with vanilla it can become your life, like agarwood.

Battaglia does not list vanilla, and it’s true that the “aromatherapy” uses pale in comparison to the beauty of its fragrance and its awe-inspiring taste

Ice Cream

Vanilla bean skin,

Cool sweet breath and cherry lips

Make kissing dessert.

---Leon Stacey

Safety Warning

As with most essential oils, dilute before using on skin. Perform a patch test before use if essential oil sensitivity is suspected.DO not take essential oils internally. Do not use on children or pets. Seek advice from a trained aromatherapist before using on people with compromised immune systems. Keep away from eyes and mucus membranes.
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You the customer are responsible for understanding the safe use of any and all of our products, including essential oils, and use them accordingly.