Vetiveria Zizanoides (Vetiver) Root Oil

Vetiver is a tall tussock grass, a cousin of sorghum and lemongrass, and the aromatic part of it is underground. The leaves smell of very little. The roots, which grow downward in a dense fibrous mass rather than spreading sideways, hold the oil, and getting it out is slow work. The roots are dug, washed, dried, and then steam is passed through them for six hours or more, because the oil sits deep in the root tissue and has to diffuse out. A tonne of roots yields a few kilos of oil. It is one of the reasons vetiver is so expensive.

What comes off the still is thick, brown, and slow to pour, and it smells earthy and woody with a smoky edge that some people take a while to warm to. Chemically it is unusual. Most essential oils are dominated by one or two compounds, whereas vetiver runs to well over a hundred, almost all of them sesquiterpenes, with no single constituent accounting for much more than a tenth of the whole. That complexity is why perfumers use it as a base note and why it has taken analytical chemists decades to map it properly.

Ours is an organic oil from Java, distilled from roots grown there, and it goes into every product in the range at between one and three parts in a thousand. On the label it is Vetiveria Zizanioides Root Oil.

Vetiver appears in every one of our formulations, near the end of the ingredient list, at between a tenth and a quarter of a percent. On the label it reads by its INCI name, and it is marked to show it is an essential oil, because you should be able to see that at a glance. The exact percentage is published on each product page.