Melissa yields so little oil that most of what carries the name is something else. We distil ours and have it proved.
Melissa gives up a fraction of the oil that most herbs do, and that single fact explains nearly everything about this material.
It takes an enormous quantity of fresh leaf to fill a small bottle. The result is one of the most expensive herb oils in existence, and therefore one of the most consistently faked: blended down with lemongrass, citronella or litsea, or built almost entirely from cheap natural citral and sold at a tempting price.
If you have seen affordable melissa, you have almost certainly seen one of those. We buy organic crop in bulk, distil it ourselves, and let the price be what the yield makes it.
Every batch goes to an independent laboratory, and on this oil the analysis is the difference between melissa and a convincing story.
The pair that defines melissa. Their proportions in a genuine oil differ from a citral blend built to imitate it.
Trace sesquiterpenes that lemongrass and litsea substitutes simply do not carry.
Looks specifically for lemongrass, citronella, litsea cubeba and isolated citral dosed into a thin batch.
Name your lot and we will send its full analysis, or write to us using the contact page.
Melissa officinalis is the lemon balm of monastery gardens, a soft-leaved mint-family plant that smells of lemon the instant you brush it.
We take the fresh leaf together with the flowering tops. Both carry oil, and this is not a plant you can dry and hold: its aromatics are fragile and largely gone by the time dried material reaches a still.
So the crop is cut and distilled fresh, which limits how and where this oil can honestly be made.
With a material this valuable and this easy to imitate, buying finished oil would be an act of faith. We do not take it.
Fresh leaf and flowering top are packed and steamed, and the oil that separates is a small quantity of pale, delicate distillate smelling of fresh lemon over a soft green heart.
The run is taken to completion. Given how little oil the plant yields, leaving any of it behind would be indefensible.
Both dates, plus a lot number to match against the analysis you asked for.
Amber in every size. A delicate citral oil needs protecting from light.
Pure Melissa officinalis, undiluted, with nothing lemony blended in behind it.
We do not claim any therapeutic effect for melissa. It has a long tradition behind it and we are content to leave the claim there.
Use it in a carrier and test a small area of skin first. Melissa is potent for its delicacy, and the sensible way to use something this scarce is sparingly anyway.
If we cannot buy crop that gives an oil the laboratory recognises as melissa, we go out of stock. That happens with this one more than with anything else we sell.
What holds for every bottle of melissa we sell.
Leaf and flowering top distilled fresh, because dried melissa is not worth stilling.
Bought in bulk direct from the farms, at the price real yield demands.
Every drop made here rather than purchased as a finished oil.
Independent laboratory confirmation before a single bottle is filled.
No lemongrass, no litsea, no isolated citral topping up a weak run.
Small bottles for most people, bulk for those who genuinely need it.
Fresh organic lemon balm, distilled here, with citral proportions and trace markers confirmed by an independent laboratory.
Ask for the analysis before you pay.
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