Verbena, not verbena-scented.

Our Distillation

Lemon verbena gives up very little oil, which is why the real thing is rare and the imitations are everywhere. Ours comes out of our own still.

Citrodora True Lemon Verbena

Low Yield Priced By Reality

Our Still Charged By Hand

3 yr Still Date Recorded

The Prestige Problem

Lemon verbena has been perfuming European toiletries since the eighteenth century, and it has been imitated for almost as long.

The leaves surrender remarkably little oil, which sets the price high and creates an obvious temptation. What often reaches buyers is lemongrass or litsea in a bottle labelled verbena, or a blend built to approximate that sparkling lemon character at a fraction of the cost.

The genuine article is more polished and less acidic than anything built from lemongrass, and it bridges citrus and floral in a way substitutes never manage. We buy organic crop in bulk and distil it here so that distinction survives to the bottle.

Fresh lemon verbena leaf packed into a small still

Small Runs, Made Here

We do not buy this one finished. On a material this often substituted, that would be handing over the only control that counts.

Fresh leaf is packed and steamed until spent, and a small quantity of pale oil separates, sparkling and sweetly lemony over a soft herbal heart.

Runs finish when the leaf is exhausted. Given the yield, stopping early would be absurd.

Distillation, bottling and a lot reference, all printed rather than stickered. Amber for every size, because citral oils suffer quickly in the light. Pure Aloysia citrodora, undiluted, with nothing cheaper standing in behind it.

Slender Leaves, Cut Fresh

Aloysia citrodora is a South American shrub taken up long ago by French and Spanish gardens, with long slender pointed leaves that smell sharply of lemon when bruised.

The leaf is what we distil, cut fresh. Verbena does not tolerate long storage before stilling any better than it tolerates being confused with lemongrass.

The plant is generous with leaf and miserly with oil, which is the whole economic story of this material in one sentence.

Slender pointed lemon verbena leaves on a woody shrub in a garden

Distinguished From Its Imitators

Each batch is analysed by an independent laboratory, and the point of the analysis is to separate verbena from what usually stands in for it.

Citral pair

Geranial and neral, in the proportions genuine verbena shows rather than those of a lemongrass blend.

Limonene and caryophyllene

Supporting constituents that a substitute built from cheaper citral oils will not reproduce.

Substitution screen

Looks for lemongrass, litsea cubeba and added isolated citral specifically.

Send your lot number for the sheet, or ask us through the contact page.

Handle It Like Something Scarce

There are no medical claims here. Verbena's place is perfumery, and its case is made by the smell.

Dilute it into a carrier and try a small area of skin first. Verbena can be mildly photosensitising, so keep treated skin out of strong sun for a while afterwards.

It is delicate in the bottle as well as in the field: keep it cool and dark, and mind the date. When we cannot buy crop worth stilling, the shelf stays empty.

The Difference Is Obvious Side By Side

Fresh organic verbena leaf, distilled here in small runs, with citral proportions and trace markers confirmed independently.

Compare it with a lemongrass blend.

Shop Lemon Verbena Oil

📄 Certificate of Analysis