Field Notes · Sourcing
"Three days north of Cairns, where the lemon myrtle grows so dense the air tastes of citrus before you've stepped out of the truck. We went to meet Marie."
Marie has been distilling for thirty-one years. Her copper still sits in a tin shed that smells, depending on the season, of lemon, eucalyptus, or river mint. There is a kettle, a battered armchair, and a notebook with every batch she's ever made pencilled in ledger columns.
We use her oil in three of our products. Not because it is the cheapest — it isn't — but because of what happens to a formulation when the raw material is grown by someone who has held it in their hand every day for three decades.
Index · Volumes I–IV
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Amber-lit study, vetiver root pressed under glass.
Sandalwood billet halved, end-grain photographed close.
Field study from the Daintree, river mint and lemon myrtle.
The founder's bench. A measuring jug, a pencil, a notebook.
Recent dispatches
Three days north of Cairns, where the lemon myrtle grows so dense the air tastes of citrus before you've stepped out of the truck.
A short essay on what 'parfum' actually means on an ingredients list, and why the answer matters more than most people realise.
Twelve-step regimens are theatre. Three considered products, used properly, will do more for your skin than a bathroom shelf of tactical purchases.
A week-long apprenticeship in Bologna, learning the difference between soap that foams and soap that protects. Mostly the latter, it turns out.
The temperature in the cold-process room sits at 14°C through July. There's a reason for that, and it shows up in every bar of soap we cure.
On the discipline of restraint, the meaning of refill, and why a label should look the same in five years as it does today.
