Essential Oils

White pine (Pinus strobus) is the giant of the New England forest. They grow quickly and reach massive heights. They also quickly colonize abandoned hayfields and pastures, forming monocultures in the landscape. Selective harvesting lets Maine farmers build and repair their barns and homes, while giving us plenty of material to distill. How wonderful!

The oil has a nice clean scent. It isn’t necessarily a high yielding plant as far as oils are concerned. It seems about 2lbs of branches is yielding 5ml of oil this time of year (early winter). I really enjoy working with pine though. It’s QUITE resinous, but the needles are nice and soft and the wood if very soft, so smaller branches just snap right off when we process the branches down into smaller pieces to be distilled.

Nothern Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) is quite a special tree. The ornamental name for trees in this genus, arborvitae (meaning tree of life), signifies it’s historic importance for maintaining our physical and spiritual well-being. This species is familiar to those who love exploring the lowland forest areas, and hanging out around beaver ponds. However, they are often grown as ornamentals. This specific batch of arborvitae was distilled from an ornamental tree that our neighbor cut down, as it was growing up through her power line. Each 5ml bottle contains the essence of about 2.5lbs of branch tips. This is probably my favorite smell, I just love cedars. We used cedar to side the interior of our tiny house. I am known to occasionally stick my face up against a wall to smell it. The branch tips are more camphorous than the walls, yet still distinctly cedar.

(NOTE: DO NOT TAKE INTERNALLY) The plant contains thujone, a naturally occuring ketone known to act as a neurotoxin within the body. Do your own research on thujone to determine if this oil is right for you.

Red Pine, or Norway Pine (Pinus resinosa) grows from Minnesota eastward to Maine in the United States. I would describe the oil as resinous. Red Pine oils are about as “piney” as you can get, having very high proportions of both alpha and beta pinene.

We think the trees look like giant bottlebrushes in the forest. They have beautiful flaking red/orange bark and we love seeing them in Maine forests. Unfortunately, porcupines love them here, too. All of this essential oil was harvested from trees that were severely damaged by porcupines (they chew through and eat the inner bark of the trees in winter).

We have found that it takes about 3.5 lbs of Red Pine branches and leaves to produce each 5ml bottle of essential oil.

Red Spruce (Picea rubens) is a conifer native to New England and Appalachia. The oil has a lovely sweet and fruity smell, quite unusual compared to the other coniferous oils that we interact with. Frankly I was unfamiliar with this species when we started distilling, but since then it has become one of my favorite trees. There is a lovely christmas spice scent that surrounds us when we handle these branches which carries over into the oil.

It takes about 2.75 lbs of plant material to make each 5ml bottle of essential oil.