This year’s Wild Lilac Attar has arrived.

The lilacs bloom for only a brief moment each spring, and from them comes one of the most labor-intensive perfumes of our year. We only make one edition every summer using wild lilacs gathered by hand on a secluded acre of a historic farm in upstate New York. Each edition changes subtly, shaped by temperatures, rainfall, and the seasonal shifts of the soil. The word "attar" is derived from the Arabic word ‘itr’, meaning scent or perfume, and a traditional attar is made by distilling flowers into a natural base, most often sandalwood. We use a creamy Hawaiian sandalwood that has very subtle floral notes because it binds to the lilac in such a way that it enhances its delicate scent rather than overpowering it.

Most flower essences and absolutes today are extracted using heat or chemical solvents, but with such harsh methods much of the flower’s delicate aromatic spectrum is lost. Lilac, with its soft, elusive nature and small, delicate petals doesn’t respond well to aggressive extraction and most perfumers have abandoned the effort to create real lilac oil. Our attar is made with a pure lilac oil that is extracted through an ancient method of perfumery called enfleurage. We make our lilac oil through collaboration with natural perfumer, nez, and chemist, Charle-Pan Rockwell Dawson who owns a historic Civil War-era lilac farm in Cherry Valley NY. Charle-Pan is one of the last perfumers in the world to practice this ancient art with tiny, delicate flowers.