English lavender

There is lavender, and then there is lavender. This one, Lavandula angustifolia, is true or fine lavender, the kind that grows above eight hundred metres on the plateaus of Provence, with a single spike per stem and a soft scent free of camphor. Lavandin, its bigger and more productive hybrid, fills the postcard fields and the industrial soaps, but its smell is coarser. The shop works only with the true one.

A history of cleanliness

The name comes from the Latin lavare, to wash. The Romans scented their baths and linen with it, and the habit never stopped: sachets in wardrobes, lavender water for ironing, dried bunches hung from kitchen beams. In Grasse it was among the first raw materials of modern perfumery. In Québec, several farms have grown it since the 2000s, and it handles our winters well when planted in soil that drains.

Harvest

It is cut with a sickle in July, when a third of the flowers on the spike are open, early in the morning before the sun disperses the oils. The bundles dry head-down in an airy loft. Étienne sources from organic farms in Provence and Québec, and selects deep-blue flowers, stripped from their stems.

In the workshop

For tea, a few flowers are enough, otherwise the cup turns soapy. It goes into the shop's tisanes, bath salts, linen sachets and perfumed oils, where it brings a clean, fresh floral note.