Aromatic Adventures

Aromatic Adventures News Letter 6 Melissa I had delayed this newsletter to hopefully share my experiences making my first distillation of osmanthus hydrosol but after planting the trees a few months ago and lots of vigorous growth and a lot hot summer, there has been no sign of any flowers....I found this great website packed with information about this most incredible smelling oil and the hydrosol is just as gorgeous (http://www.leffingwell.com/osmanthus.htm) But my anticipation and excitement will have to wait a while....   Melissa Officinalis Hydrosol I have completed one distillation of melissa hydrosol ( about three weeks later than I had planned but it turns out waiting was a good thing as the plants not only grew bigger but there is a lot of new growth underneath to carry over to the new season. As an essential oil, melissa is one of the most expensive with one of the lowest yields. it is also often highly adulterated. So i thought I would give the hyd...

W elcome to this belated Aromatic Adventures Newsletter # 5-sorry no space to feature an oil of the month. Some time and some miles have been travelled since my last aromatic musings...it has all centered around attending and being a speaker at the most incredible Botanica 2012 conference in Dublin. This event brought together over 250 people from over 28 countries for three glorious days when Dublin put on its finest autumnal weather in many years! Over the years I have always loved getting together with aroma enthusiasts as we all have much in common, and this event was no different! Rhiannon Harris (Editor of the International Journal of Clinical Aromatherapy) did an incredible job putting together an amazing team of people around her to bring together such a diverse mix of speakers and topics. There certainly was something for everyone! It was my very first trip to Ireland and I was like an excited child for most of the time. I had taken my husband with me an...

Archive Newsletter 4 Meet the Linas June 2012 the Winter Solstice and Matarkiki  (Maori New Year)  in New Zealand just passed but for us the worse of our winter is to come. My emerging fragrant garden is holding up well to the frosty onslaught with the help of frost cloth. The osmanthis hedge seems settled and happy in its sunny and sheltered spot (we get a fierce cross wind here).  This newsletter is about some oils which I like referring to as 'The Lina's"- Rosalina and Nerolina. These are two wonderful oils native to Australia and gentle cousins of teatree. The other issue I would like to touch on is essential oil quality which I get asked a lot about. A really easy way to think of this is to equate essential oils to the wine industry- fine champagens from specialist suppliers right the way down to the wine on the bottom shelf of the supermarket that you used to drink as a student.  Firstly back to basics -an essential oil is"   “…...

Archive Newsletter 3 April 2012 Greetings from autumnal New Zealand- it has been great having some extended sunshine after our dismal summer. The biggest excitement at aromatic adventures HQ has been the planting of my 14 precious Rosa damascena bushes, finally after a year being pot bound. These will be used exclusively for distillation for hydrosol and I will update on their progress in the blog . I have also just started planting a hedge of Osmanthus fragrans , also destined for the still in spring. As promised this newsletter  is all about the wonderful world of petitgrain essential oils. Petitgrain literally means ‘small fruit’, and is generally used to describe the essential oil obtained from the leaves and twigs from the bitter orange tree. All petitgrain oils are obtained by steam distillation of the leaves and twiglets from varieties of citrus trees from the rutaceae family. Often they are produced after fruit harvesting has finished and the trees have rou...

Archive News Letter March 2012 Welcome to our second newsletter! It is a little late as we took possession of our brand new house just as i was due to put the finishing touches- moving into a house in the middle of a weather bomb was not fun! However the arrival of our 2 new kittens Yuzu and Swatch made up for it- and they have been a great distraction I must say!  I really appreciate making aromatic connections and it is wonderful to hear different stories. One great connection which struck a chord after the feature on Acacia oils is this face book page covering everything about Wattles- I just love the look of the chocs and have been salivating in a virtual sense over them-they look delicious!  With a newsletter such as this I know the readership is diverse with the common bond of aromatics,however I don’t wish to supply basic information. For those who are new or just starting their aromatic journey please feel free to ask for the free introductory ar...