Provenance

Elgiva’s lavender is grown, harvested and traditionally distilled by one farming family over several generations, on their 67-hectare Provençal lavender farm. This is a single-estate lavender oil: everything happens on one site, by one family, rather than being pooled with other farms’ crops at a cooperative, the way most French lavender is produced.

The Farm

The farm runs adjacent to the river that supplies the local village, so pesticides are never an option, even if the family wanted to use them, and they do not. They are CENSO accredited, which requires a sustainable development strategy that reconciles technological progress with environmental preservation.

Why Every Lavender Oil Smells Different

The idiosyncratic distillation process is a key part of what gives this oil its distinct, instantly recognisable fragrance. The plant’s cultivar and terroir shape the balance between floral and camphorous notes; the point in the flowering cycle at which it’s harvested affects the concentration of linalool and linalyl acetate, the compounds behind lavender’s sweet, calming scent; and the drying process, how quickly and in what humidity the flowers dry, determines how much of that character survives. Dried too slowly in damp conditions, those delicate esters begin to break down, leaving a sharper, more herbaceous oil.

Single-Estate, Not Blended

Most French lavender growers send their harvest to a cooperative, where it’s blended with crops from other farms according to lavender type: grosso, phenomenal, provence. Elgiva’s farmers distil their own oil on site; it is never blended. Single-estate, in the way a fine olive oil is. Elgiva London is currently the only UK importer of this lavender oil.