Mitti Attar (Petrichor) Oil

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In 2006, I moved from West Coast Canada to the extreme heat and desert of Arizona. I didn’t like the desert. I had heatstroke too many times and found it hard to acclimate to cactus and red dust. I felt lost as my place to write or meditate were no longer near the ocean.  Arizona was hard on my body and after almost a year, I decided I had to return to the sea but not before the desert saw fit to leave me with a parting gift. After weeks of 100 degree heat and red dust caked on all my belongings, there was rain. I remember the scent when the monsoon came. It smelled soft and sweet with a clay mineral note. It was dusty and deep and I wanted to bottle it. I’ve chased that scent ever since.

In those days, I knew little about Mitti Attar or Petrichor oil. I didn’t know that in India, this beautiful oil has been distilled for over a thousand years. I began my search for the scent of rain. I kept samples over the years as both a record but also to age them out in the hope I would capture that scent but I was disappointed. Nothing matched the scent of monsoon rain on red clay in Arizona. After a colleague encouraged me to consider adding attars to our apothecary, I decided to try Mitti from our adored distillation partner due to the superb work they do in this field. It takes a lot of doing to create this attar. Special clay is kiln baked, soaked in water and distilled for a month in what is their already exquisite sandalwood essential oil which I also carry. The most I’ve accomplished is three distillations in one day. I can’t imagine distilling anything that long but it’s precisely what it takes to distill this absolutely precious attar. I wear it often. I adore it because this is the scent I’ve been searching for since 2006. And because this is how rain is bottled.