Common name: Lavender Maillette (France)
Genus Name: Lavandula augustifolia “Maillette” a.k.a. English Lavender “Maillette”
Supplier: John Steele
Note: mid-top
Some interesting bits: This variety is used extensively in the production of perfumes and essential oils. Considered one of the most precious types of lavender.
It is drought tolerant, resistant to deer and attractive to bees — in fact, we bought the most most amazingly fragrant lavender honey while in Croatia this year and anyone who tastes it can’t believe it wasn’t altered by the locals with lavender essential oil.
Has a shelf life of up to three years.
It is a French variety of lavender which also grows in England
Main Chemical Components: Linalool, linalyl acetate, 3-octanone, d-limonene, Trans-B-ocimene, Cis-B-ocimene, Camphor, Terpinen-4-ol, a-terpineol, Lavandulyl acetate.
Their nose: This essential oil has a soft, sweet, fruity, spicy, herbaceous bouquet with an green, woody undertone. (White Lotus Aromatics)
My nose: This is so light! This is my first impression. Bright and uplifting like the first warm spring days, sweet. Cool, luminous, pungent, even tart! I can pick out the linalool in this.
After the 1st hour it smells more like dried twigs, has lost most of its zing which was probably due to the alcohol effect (not me, the dilution), sweeter, paler, beginning to exit.
After 3 hours strange, but, do I smell coconuts?! Dry, brittle, still faintly sweet, now beginning to fade into the paper, I can smell the smell of paper (is that even possible?!).
1 day later it is still noticeable but now only a whisper remains.
Her Two Scents 
A shelf life of only three years? Is that in a properly stoppered bottle that is kept out of sunlight?
I know scents are time fugitive, and some more than others (like some pigments are as well), but is there a rule of thumb to go by for oils and extractions?
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Hi Mitch, seems you’re a fellow scent admirer, welcome! Well, three years is what they print on the label when you buy it, I suppose they’re bound by some sort of rule to add it, but if kept in good favourable conditions (cool and dark place) then they could last for much longer. The thing is that some chemical components begin to disappear the longer they’re exposed to the elements, there’s no rule really, some oils, like the citruses are just more volatile than others, for example the resins or absolutes.
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Thanks for the welcome! Yes, I can see that with some oils; I know they breakdown very quickly when exposed to air.
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