The Story of Enfleurage 2
What Became Important in Choosing Essential Oils
From 1995 to now, Enfleurage has grown, matured and become well known for very high quality essential oils and absolutes. We have a dual concept to ensure we surround ourselves with the most lovely, sparkling and fresh aromatics nature can supply. The concepts are
1. Where: Terroir—There are a few things to consider about where essential oils come from and the first is terroir. It’s the weather, the soil, the geology, the wind, the biodiversity, etc. Basically it’s the neighborhood. But it’s more than that, it’s the entirety of the situation the plant lives in. The same species can grow in two places and look very different from each other. Frankincense will grow in Muscat, but it’s happier in Dhofar. It doesn’t like to give resin in the north, reserving this honor for the south, and even then, it’s happier in certain areas of Dhofar, and can’t easily be explained by water usage or humidity, or even by temperature. Frankincense trees grow in many different mini-eco-systems, and it’s not easy to explain why here and not there, for example. The differences are not obvious, but over time one begins to see—this is the case for all plants.
2. Who: People--The second thing we look for is who is doing the growing, the harvesting, the extraction, etc. Obviously, we prefer no chemicals, genetic manipulation, exploitation of workers, or corporatization of the natural process, as pertains to each plant. In general, we prefer small and passionate distilleries and of course we are devoted to quality. We therefore work with specialty distilleries around the world, where we can visit occasionally, participate in the harvest or extraction if possible, and talk to the people involved.
Today Enfleurage regularly imports essential oils and absolutes from about 40 countries, and we offer a few natural aromatics for incense: resins and woods. Everything in the store is 100% botanical and intact. My partner Tom and I travel a lot, visiting harvests and distillations, all over the world.
We’ve been open as Enfleurage since 1997, a small specialty boutique in one of Manhattan’s, most interesting and delightful neighborhoods, Greenwich Village. (The two previous years we were Trygve Aromatics.) Our clients are locals, perfumers, therapists, aroma enthusiasts, and anyone who is interested in exploring the world of essential oils and wants an authentic experience that they can take in any direction they like. We are a well known source for information regarding our oils, and many of us have worked at Enfleurage since its beginning, meaning over 20 years. And we are not multi-level marketing, so no agenda and no high pressure sales.
As I mentioned, my specialty was agarwood, and we had Laotian and some small amounts of Assamese (Indian) wood and oil in the store. I did a course on essential oils at Purdue University in Indiana and my final paper was on Aquilaria ssp. We were quite well known for it.
What Happened with Agarwood?
When agarwood’s status was changed from a sublime entity into a mass-traded commodity, and the trade was banned except by certain large companies, we had to leave it. I felt like an aroma widow. This process was complete by 2011—it seemed like a coup d’arôme. The people who loved Oudh were pushed out, unless they had really big money. A small group of interested parties managed to get it on CITES, the listing of which meant simply only those with the certificate could trade or travel with the Aquilaria. They used the “endangered species” moniker to seize control of the trade. At the same time, a huge publicity surge widened the market exponentially. Now everyone has heard of oudh. Ironically, though, the farmed wood available now (2020) is a ghost of what we had. Where once wild trees had grown in the forest and made an infection based on a fungus that attacked where and when and if it chose, these were replaced with agarwood plantations: straight lines of trees, riddled with infection tubes, like a horror movie, to produce more of this botanical, to feed their growing market, and only for those large companies or mafia organizations who could obtain the certificate. I will say, still, that this was a scam, perpetrated by a cynical group who took advantage of the language of endangered species, to further their own interests. The world lost a lot when we lost agarwood; those tortured farmed trees just make you look away, reduced to commodities, like animals on a factory farm. It’s the Matrix. The glorious mystery and sublime wood is now out of our lives, unless we are private collectors with massive amounts of money. Almost all the agarwood one sees today is this farmed dreck, which can smell pretty, but is not the same at all.
Magical Muscat and the Space of Salalah
In 2006 I traveled to Oman for the first time—it had been a dream for years, but Oman was difficult to visit before that, in the way that I traveled. But I came to see our frankincense distiller. He was based in Muscat, and drove me around a little in the evening. I remember how quiet the Shatti roundabout was, with the smell of the sprinklers, earth and flowers everywhere. I could hear crickets, in the middle of the capital city! Muscat was elegant, serene, enchanting, beautiful white Omani architecture, trees covered in fragrant blossoms, flowers everywhere, pictures of HM Qaboos, whom I had already admired, all juxtaposed between the bare ochre mountains and the sea. I was swooning.
A few days later I went south, arriving in Salalah by bus, alone, at 3 am. I walked over to the Salalah hotel, fortunately located very near the GTC bus station. In the morning I woke up to empty space. I was completely at sea. There were no points of reference; nothing was obvious. Everything was space. Just open space. I saw dust blowing. Camels. Some cars. Mountains in the distance. A coffee shop with men sitting. This was the center of Salalah.
I soon moved to the Haffa House Hotel, at the airport roundabout, and found someone to show me around. Mohammed drove me all over for a week. To the Wadi Dowka trees, to Job’s Tomb, to Wadi Darbat and to the baobab forest. Up and down Haffa corniche, to the Mirbat fish restaurant. Out to the port, for tea and paranthas with old men in Zeek, to Ayn Razat, and Jebel Samhan, to Khor Rori, Hasik, and back to the frankincense souq. The theme of Salalah was space, austerity, the sounds of nature we don’t hear any more. The frankincense was beyond enchanting. The smoke curling through the Haffah souq, the entire stores devoted to selling bags of frankincense, men sorting pieces in public areas, tea at Leyali Hadramawt, endless resin fondling, smelling, talking, dreaming.
I spent my time in Salalah swooning
The American expression is “I drank the Kool-aid”