Late summer lavender

Those with a lavender-lined path have been lucky enough through August’s sunshine to be daily skipping over a treasure trove of scent. Though, as a relatively common and well-known plant, lavender is often overlooked.

Old ladies

Lavender has fallen out of favour, I believe, through its association with ‘old ladies’. We can blame Queen Victoria, she set the trend for lavender, including appointing a ‘Purveyor of Lavender Essence to the Queen’, a lady called Miss Sarah Sprules of Warrington. The ladies who dutifully copied her were still adding lavender sachets to their linen drawers in their old age – through the early and mid 20th Century, when the ‘old lady’ persona developed. Before this time lavender was a herb for lovers, inserted into the cleavage to attract suitors, slipped under the pillow of the marriage bed, or used as lavender water to freshen shirts.

Boil lavender in water then, ‘wet thy shirt in it, dry it again, and wear it.’

William Langham, Garden of Health, 1579

In our century, many a bottle of lavender water, or lavender scented soap or talcum powder has gathered dust on gift-shop shelves. Whether it’s the fussy packaging that’s to blame, or the synthetic approximation of lavender that cloys, lavender deserves to be looked at afresh.

Beautiful staple

Lavender has been a primary beauty staple for centuries. Its name derives from the latin lavare ‘to wash’ as its role was identified in Roman times as a helpful herb for cleansing. Not only does it freshen the air, it is also an important contributor to personal cleansing products and laundry products.

From these times it has been in continual use among the strewing herbs, toilet waters, and perfumes.

Commercial distillation of lavender began in the early 17th Century and the resulting lavender water was a popular remedy for headaches. A different Queen had popularised this trend, Elizabeth I, her willingness to pay well for supplies encouraged the development of lavender farming.

‘Water of lavender hearbe and flowers chopped together and distilled in June is good against ye gyddynes of ye head.’

Sloane MS. 10 Plut. IXXXIV.F.

However, even then there was caution about it’s overuse. Culpeper warns us this from a medicinal point of view. It has also proved true from a commercial point of view – sometimes we can have too much of a good thing.

‘The chymical oil drawn from Lavender usually called Oil of Spike, is of so fierce and piercing a quality that it is cautiously to be used, some few drops being sufficient to be given with other things, either for inward or outward griefs.’

Culpeper

Aromatherapy

The popularity of lavender soared with the advent of aromatherapy. While the benefits of scented plants have been deployed for as long as humans have been on this planet, their distillation into bottles of essential oils came about only in the 20th Century.

In concentrated form, plant essential oils are highly potent and powerful. Most are also significant sensitisers needing to be used in minute amounts (just a few drops at a time) and always in dilute form (e.g., 1:100 in a carrier oil). Lavender essential oil is one of the few exceptions that can be used neat on skin. It is very helpful in this form to combat burns and bites. (NB, this is not true of lavendin or spike lavender essential oils which do need to be diluted for use on skin).

As a result, lavender essential oil has become a staple of the medicine cabinet and also will often be the first oil people experiment with when starting to get to know essential oils.

As a relatively ‘safe’ oil with a highly pleasant smell, lavender essential oil has been very heavily deployed commercially. This mass use, often of poorly replicated synthetic versions of lavender, has contributed to the negative appeal of the scent. Overuse can also have the more serious consequence of creating sensitisation. The bombardment of scent in our daily lives has stiffled our true appreciation of scent in its natural form. Our noses need retraining to be able to appreciate the full benefits offered by plants.

Well bred perfume

Lavender is still very much appreciated by the discerning noses of the perfume industry. Far from being an ‘old ladies’ scent, it is incorporated in many perfumes, including scents developed for a masculine audience. In these it brings a fresh, clean note with the benefit of being both calming and uplifting.

Provence in France is recognised as the traditional home of perfumery. Since the early years of the 20th Century, the major perfume houses have developed, centring on Grasse. While these grew from small perfume creators, their prosperity in this location is in large part due to the presence of a particular wild lavender: grosse lavande also known as lavand bastard. This plant yields between two and five times the amount of essential oil compared to true lavender (Lavendula augustifolia), making it of high commercial interest.

With demand growing, they began cultivating the wild lavender and this variety dominated the Provencial fields by 1925. In 1927 researchers in Grasse artificially pollinated spike lavender (L. latifolia), which also grows wild in the south of France, with true lavender pollen. The result was a plant identical to grosse lavande. This was initially called L.Hybrida but is now known as L x intermedia.

This is the plant that has been used to create the vast acres of purple fields we now associate with the Provence region. By the 1950s the characteristic row-planting had been adopted to facilitate the use of machinery.

Lavender farming of this type is an intense process. As with all hybrids, it must be propagated from cuttings (not seed) in order to replicate the parent qualities exactly. Further enhancement continues with many other cultivars developed. The three most popular clones are varieties known as ‘Super’, ‘Grosso’ and ‘Abrialii’. Of these, ‘Grosso’ is the most reliable in cultivation, though ‘Super’ is the closest to true lavender biochemically, and therefore preferred by aromatherapists.

Northern quality

Lavendin and Spike lavender need a warmer climate than true lavender to grow at their best. So, while the sunny fields of Provence provide the perfume industry with their copious needs, the more northerly fields of (traditionally) Norfolk or Suffolk, and other English counties, provide arguably the best true lavender. Writing in 1931, Hilda Leyel, founder of the Herb Society, said that she had ‘often come across fields of French Lavender in bloom, and that the scent has been poor compared with English Lavender grown under the worse conditions.’ Her reference to ‘French Lavender’ is likely not geographical, but rather the common term for feathery Lavandula stoechas.

Lavendin / Lavender / spike lavender

Sometimes getting your head round the different types of lavender can feel a bit like conjugating a latin verb!

True lavender (L.augustifolia) is the ‘source’ plant in medicinal and perfumery terms. This is the ‘pure’ scent of lavender that others are trying to replicate. This plant was formerly known as L.officinalis, indicating that it is the variety used medicinally, and the variety typically still chosen today by herbalists.

Spike lavender (L.latifolia) has a different range of chemical constituents, including much greater dominance of camphor.

Lavandin (L x intermedia) is the hybrid of lavender and spike lavender. While at least 100 of true lavender’s constituents are matched in lavendin, making it chemically very similar to true lavender – including 25-35% linalyl acetate (known for its sedative and anti-inflammatory properties) – there is a greater quantity of camphor – up to 8%, making it less calming in character.

Keep lavender to hand

For the medicinal benefits of curing a headache with a little lavender tea or a splash of lavender water …

For the skincare benefits of lavender’s anti-inflammatory and astringent properties, cleansing and tightening your skin …

For the calming and stimulating aromatherapy benefits of lavender …

For the household medicine cabinet, as an emergency remedy for burns and bites …

For the aromatic punch it gives to cakes, syrups and herbes de provence in cooking …

And for the aesthetically pleasing presence of a bunch of lavender, or some lavender flowers blended into a pot pourri …

… lavender is a herb that should be incorporated plentifully into life, and not left on the shelf.