SCIENCE VS ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE

Lavender has been in use since ancient times yet there has been very little rigorous scientific study of its effectiveness. We don’t need scientists to tell us it smells wonderful but it would be helpful to know why users make so many claims about its benefits: anecdotally, lavender is both relaxing and invigorating. A true lavender such as Maillette is relaxing in the bath before bed while a hybrid like camphorous Grosso has a fresh heady energising scent. Lavender users say its cooling properties help to alleviate the effects of sunburn and that it has healing power for minor burns and blemishes. Lavender, it is said, keeps moths and wasps away. These claims seem true to us. But they are only claims and we would like to see serious scientific investigation into them. Why is it that we never see wasps in our lavender fields, but lots of bumble bees buzzing from plant to plant? A spray of lavender water (also known as hydrolat, a by-product of the distillation process) on a mosquito bite does have a cooling effect and relieves the itch too. But we cannot explain why. Various studies conducted over the past decade point to lavender playing a role in reducing stress, anxiety and agitation as well as helping to fight insomnia. Here is a summary: http://www.zhion.com/herb/Lavender.html We are on the lookout for reliable scientific studies lavender.

OUR LAVENDER VARIETIES

Lavender classification and naming are mind bogglingly complex and confusing. There are at least 39 species of the genus lavandula and hundreds more cultivars (e.g. hybrids). Some lavenders produce oil; many do not. They’re not all purple though most of them are. True lavenders are often called English when in fact they come from the Mediterranean. And the most commonly farmed lavender in the world – Grosso – is not even a true lavender. It is a hybrid named for the man who developed it in the seventies in France, Pierre Grosso. Grosso has strong clean notes, is very long stemmed with its flowers forming a conical shape. We grow four varieties on our Welsh hill farm. Two of them, Grosso and Maillette (a “true” or angustifolia lavender) produce oil. Two are grown for purely decorative purposes: Royal Purple and Imperial Gem. Lavender plants last anywhere from five to 18 years although there can be surprise losses. One year we planted a few hundred and lost almost all of them. Then along came the winter of 2009-10 with its endless snow, deep cold, followed by miserable rain and we lost hardly any.

DISTILLATION

In the production of oil timing is said to be everything. Some say the perfect moment to cut – in order to maximise yield – is when the flowers are one third closed, one third open, and one third finished. We found crawling around in the field trying to identify that stage quite daunting in our first year of oil production. Alastair Christie of Jersey Lavender has generously mentored us. His advice was to keep it simple and cut the flowers when they appear to be half finished. This made decision days much easier for us. There are however other variables to consider. Harvesting should be done when it’s dry, ideally on a sunny day as soon as the dew has evaporated. More oil is produced on sunny days than cloudy. More when warm than cold. As well, there are debates about how tightly one packs the lavender in the still basket and how long lavender should be left to cook. To distil our lavender we pack a mesh basket quite tightly – by hand – and then place it inside a steel cylinder where it sits on a rim just above water. It takes nearly an hour for the water to reach boiling point. The steam generated pushes up through the lavender and is forced through a connecting tube to the condenser where a 25 foot coil of stainless steel spirals downward. Cold water running through the condenser cools the coil, turning the steam back into liquid. At the end of the process, the oil and water separate into the Florentine, a flask at the bottom of the condenser. Lavender oil is lighter than water so a small tap at the top of the Florentine releases the oil while the floral water or hydrolat is collected through a tap at the bottom of it. A small amount of water always comes through with the oil so the final step is to use a funnel separator to skim off the pure oil. We run the still for about two hours a time, drawing oil every twenty minutes or so. Gas chronometer tests on our oil show almost no variation in quality over that two hour time period. One basket of Grosso flowers yields about 125 millilitres of oil. The same amount of Maillette, like other true lavenders, may yield just 25 millilitres.

SCIENTIFIC TESTING

This section coming soon.

Once inside the large steel cylinder, steam will extract the oil from this basket of Maillette. The oil and floral water are taken from the Florentine at the bottom of the smaller condenser tower.
(Nancy Durham)

Oil floats on water in the separating funnel. The water is drained off and the pure oil is bottled.
(Nancy Durham)