Clairmont Farms Lavender

Recently, we traveled up to Los Olivos near Santa Barbara to attend a wedding. It reminded me of the Sonoma Valley - rich, fertile hills full of grape vineyards, olive trees and huge oak trees. We took the last day to explore downtown Los Olivos with it's olive oil tasting bars - fig balsamic is my favorite - and peach and blueberry stands.


Somebody in town mentioned that we might like the lavender farm so we drove over to take a look at Clairmont Lavender Farm. We drove up to 5 acres of lavender in full bloom. I could not get out of the car fast enough and my husband had that resigned look he gets when he knows we are going to be here for a while and leave with a lot of stuff "for work".
 There are chickens in the driveway, a small gift shop and off to the side the thing that interested me most - a working copper still for distilling lavender oil. They cut and dry the lavender, sift and distill it using a low temperature that yields a beautiful Grosso Lavender oil that is reminiscent of a French lavender but with a bit of a kick. The price for their lavender oil was very, very reasonable and a little goes a long way. I add it neat to the bath and only a few drops does the trick. A bag of loose lavender with 10 small bags to fill and use as sachets was about $10 (unheard of) and very potent. They have absolutely wonderful lavender soap, dog shampoo, bath salts, etc, and my favorite culinary find Sea Salt with Lavender. We tried a saute of spinach in olive oil, garlic and the sea salt with lavender. 


Clairmont Farms has a newsletter you can subscribe to on their website - www.clairemontfarms.com . Definitely worth a look on the site or a visit if you are ever in the area.

Mélange perfume
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.melangeperfume.com/
melangeperfume@gmail.com

LAVENDER IN BLOOM - MELANGE PERFUMES

This is the view from my office.

I have always loved Lavender.  Living in Southern California, it is easy to grow & thanks to Sperling Nursery we grow several varieties. We have Spanish, French and English Lavender.  And yes, each smells different to me.  

I love to rub my fingers over the stalks and take in their fragrance.  If I move on to the Rosemary and do the same one of my favorite bath blends comes to life. 

Before we began to create Melange Perfume for other stores, we stocked Lavender essential oils in our previous store, Melange Apothecary.  For custom blending, we usually used the French or Bulgarian varities.  The French was a traditional sweet fragrance and was beautiful blended with other floral notes and warm notes, such as Sandalwood and Amber.  My favorite was the Bulgarian Lavender.  Bulgarian Lavender has a marvelous fresh fragrance and a earthy quality I find quite beautiful.  It is beautiful blended with Rosemary, Eucalyptus, and citrus notes such as Bergamot or Mandarin.  Most people who selected Lavender for blending did not use it in perfume (hence the decision not to use it for Melange Perfumes).  It was most popular in Bath & Body Oil, Bath Salts and Bath & Shower Gel. 

To manufacture even a small amount of Lavender essential oil requires a lot of flower buds and distillation equipment. Just for fun, I used a recipe for making Lavender Oil I found on http://www.wikihow.com/. Place your Lavender flowers in a jar of oil (I used Jojoba, though Olive Oil can also be used).  Cover and place in a sunny window.  After a few days, strain the oil over a bowl using a muslin cloth. Return that oil to the jar and place new flowers in the oil.  I repeated this process 3 times and was very happy with my Lavender Oil.  It will not be the same consistency as an essential oil, but it did not need to be diluted and was wonderful to use.  You can place the oil in a nice bottle with label for a gift.  I plan to try this for Mother's Day.  

Back to blending.  Happy Spring!

Melange Perfume

Los Angeles, CA

818-886-1635

melangeperfume@gmail.com

http://www.melangeperfume.com/