Nettle CO2 Oil

Welcome to the Stinging Nettle Suite.

In the earliest signs of spring, when the cherry blossoms burst through grey skies and sunsets begins to drag their heels, stinging nettles arrive; wily plants misunderstood by those who see an invasive stinger of a weed and loved by foragers who know it’s nourishing virtues. I’ve foraged for and eaten nettles my whole life from as early as I can remember. It was my mother’s heritage as well, having had the knowledge passed to her from her grandmother and aunts. I also read herbal books my mother had for as long and still remember Mrs. Grieve’s (A Modern Herbal) recipe for nettle pudding and suggested antidote,

 “ Nettle in, dock out. Dock rub nettle out!” I thrashed nettles on my arms more than a few times followed by dock to test the theory and found that the only thing to cancel out nettle stings was time.

Stinging nettle CO2 is a career long dream of mine to have in the apothecary. I’ve foraged for and eaten nettles my whole life from as early as I can remember. It was my mother’s heritage as well, having had the knowledge passed to her from her grandmother and aunts. Beyond use as a potherb, it has been me to not only distill the plant but also search for a producer willing to extract it in the most favorable method possible which is via CO2. I didn’t expect Nettle CO2 to come with the extra benefit of being a perfume ingredient because there isn’t much in the way of an aroma profile out of the bottle however, I found that it performed transformative magic with our neroli absolute by rounding out any green notes in the absolute when diluted at 1%. I tried it as well with the tuberose perfume I’ve been working on all fall, also at 1% but it muted the beautiful tuberose notes I’ve developed. I speculate that it would be best expressed in bright aromatics within the citrus family.