What to do with all that lavender? WA farmers got creative and made oil

SEATTLE — Long after her final customer walked off the fields every August, Ivy Cheung found herself staring at the deep purple lavender plants that lined her 1-acre farm in serene Fall City, rueing the fact that people seemed to care more about taking photos with lavender than taking home bunches of the flowers. Cheung saw the would-be revenue left on her treasured plants: hundreds of pounds of unpicked blooms at the end of her season left to waste.

Then, in 2019, she learned about lavender essential oil, the potently scented product found in everything from soap to smelling salts. Two months and a trip to Asia later, the Hong Kong-raised insurance broker had purchased a $5,000 distiller and was learning the process of extracting the oils.

Five years later, her small-scale operation has grown into a modest moneymaking gambit. Although it requires continuous labor, the semi-translucent distiller’s mad science lab-esque design is a hit for visitors, many of whom have no background on the extraction process. And then there’s the oil itself, which she sells in roll-on or dropper-style vials starting at $5 for a 5-milliliter bottle.

Cheung can’t keep up with demand; she never has excess product at the end of the season. Visitors say they’ll use the oils for reasons Cheung never expected — calming their horses, fending off ticks from their dogs’ fur, or using it as a sleep aid — as they buy up Cheung’s whole supply.

Lavender essential oil has grown in popularity in the U.S. for decades. Imports more than tripled in the 2010s, topping out at 3.3 million pounds of essential oil. At the same time, U.S. exports grew more than sevenfold.

The Pacific Northwest is one of the nation’s most fruitful lavender-producing regions, said Sherri Wood, president of the United States Lavender Growers Association. Sequim, the self-proclaimed “Lavender Capital of North America,” is home to more than a dozen farms and an annual lavender festival. Inland regions east of the Cascade mountains offer sunny, dry climates that are likewise optimal for growing. Farmers have capitalized on a decadelong growth of lavender oil demand — though, farmers and experts say it has been driven by sometimes exaggerated claims of health and wellness benefits.

Yet, while domestic lavender oil production has experienced marked growth, it remains at a small scale. Roughly a quarter of the 700 farms in the United States Lavender Growers Association distill oil, a fact that surprised Wood. Then again, more than half of Wood’s enrolled members aren’t full-time farmers. While the U.S. exports upward of 44,000 pounds of oil, that pales in comparison to the amount imported from the two dominant lavender oil-producing countries: France and Bulgaria. In 2020, the U.S. imported more than 1.4 million pounds of French lavender essential oil.

“We’re very infantile in the stage we’re at,” said Michael Lemmers, president of Lavender Northwest. Of the 80 members, about half are distilling oils. All but a few are small growers with only a couple of hundred plants.

Cheung is no exception. Her roughly 1,200 plants, while a hassle to manage for the one-woman (and a part-time neighbor) show, is insignificant when compared to farms in France that grow hundreds of thousands of plants. The hours she puts in adjusting water levels in her distiller are a drop in the bucket compared to a labor-rich, low-wage country like Bulgaria.

“You don’t see the money. You admire your flowers,” Cheung said while dumping out the water left over from distilling her lavender oil as she does three times a day for most of the summer. “You have to love what you have; otherwise, it’s very difficult.”

About those health benefits …

Lavender essential oil is produced by the process of distillation. The blooms are placed inside a machine that boils water, passing steam through the plant. The steam extracts the aromatic compounds from the plant and, after it is condensed, the machine can separate the scented oils from the water.

Essential oil has long been marketed as a remedy for health conditions. Many ancient civilizations sprinkled the oils on body parts for protection, using different oils for different ailments. Lavender, for instance, was known to help wash hair and treat migraines. During the black death, doctors put oil in their beaklike masks under the belief that it would protect them from the airborne disease.

In the early 2010s, a variety of essential oil companies began dominating the market, pitching themselves as vendors of natural remedies that offered real protections against serious ailments. As at-home diffusers became easier to produce and cheaper to buy, companies like Young Living and doTERRA grew from relatively unknown sellers to national heavyweights, selling billions of dollars’ worth of oils each year.

Those claims had consequences. In February, plaintiffs brought a class-action lawsuit against Utah-based essential oil brand Young Living, alleging that, in part, the company claimed its lavender oil had health benefits and was therapeutic-grade without scientific backing. The company settled that lawsuit in May for $5 million.

Still, promises of lavender’s relaxing properties are widespread. A search for “lavender oil” on social media sites yields posts that tout “anti-aging” and “soothing” properties. While there are some studies on the health benefits of lavender, there is no consistent scientific proof of its anti-aging or medically soothing properties.

Cheung herself was skeptical about the oils’ wellness benefits, choosing to tread lightly and try small amounts on her skin before touting any claims. Now, she says it helps ease frequent headaches and alleviates small cuts she gets on her hands from trimming her lavender plants. She espouses these perceived benefits to her customers.

Lemmers, a physician in the Portland area, pumps the brakes when it comes to describing the benefits of the oils themselves. He’s noticed that smaller farms — even some members of the organization he leads — make bold claims about the oil’s healing properties. “There are real limitations on what one can say about health-related benefits,” Lemmers said.

The core of the issue, Lemmers said, is a misunderstanding of what the oil itself is. Essential oil isn’t just one compound. It’s made up of hundreds of molecules. Some of those molecules, Lemmers said, may have those calming effects, but the precise makeup can vary. This results in different smells, different chemical makeups and — potentially — different health impacts.

The future of lavender in the PNW

Lemmers believes that developing a standardized process of testing and controlling for the assortment of molecules that make up an essential oil could give Northwest growers a competitive edge and create a more premium-end product.

“The whole lavender farming community here is in an evolutionary process,” Lemmers said.

Collaboration is the name of the game, said Patrice Calmels, who owns a 6,000-plant farm near Bend, Ore. Originally from the south of France, Calmels immediately noticed the differences between production in the two countries. In France, farmers focus on one or two types of lavender and are aligned in setting production standards. In the U.S., he’s seen farms with as many as 10 cultivars, distilling the essential oil in every which way.

Even at Calmels’ farm, which focuses on European and oil-rich cultivars, no more than one-third of his profit comes from oil sales. Calmels believes that a farm must have upward of 50,000 plants to begin generating a profit from the oils alone, an opinion shared by other industry leaders.

Calmels’ oil-rich Grosso lavender plants yield between 10 and 15 milliliters of oil each, which can be sold for anywhere between $10 and $25. Bundles of blossoms from that same plant can be sold for between $100 and $150.

Calmels hopes to convince growers across the Northwest to collaborate and set standards for the makeup of their oils, and to share best practices by creating a cooperative. He believes this will improve efficiency and lower the number of plants necessary to begin producing a profit from oil alone. And there’s a benefit for the customer, too: an end product of consistently high quality.

Even with the industry as it is, dwarfed by international powerhouses, small Pacific Northwest growers see a future in small-scale production for reasons other than pure sales. Now more than ever, multiple farmers said, the oil is popular not just among health-minded individuals as a niche medicine, but to tourists as an artisan craft.

Zion Hilliker and his family own B&B Family Lavender Farm in Sequim. At 14,000 plants, their lavender farm is Sequim’s largest. Despite the comparatively low profit margins associated with essential oils — Hilliker turns a profit, but sells his oils for higher than a competitive market rate — he decided to distill as a way to boost the farm’s reputation of selling only homegrown products.

Hilliker believes it would be “disingenuous” for the farm to resell oil it bought from another commercial source, rather than do the work to produce oil in-house. Though Hilliker knows it’s more cost-effective to buy imported oils, he believes that farm-distilled oils are appealing to a consumer who wants to remember the smell of the specific farm.

Most of the large farms around Sequim, B&B included, say lavender oil is one of their hottest items. Each unique scent of small-batch essential oils — influenced by factors like cultivar, water and soil quality, and aging — is likely to keep a visitor coming back for years to come.

Cheung’s oil, too, keeps customers coming back to Fall City year after year, she says. One woman comes from out of the state each summer to buy a year’s supply. Another brings her young children to watch the outlandish distillation process. Overall, Cheung says about 45% of customers walk away with a bottle of the oil.

To Cheung, it’s not about the money. It’s about the connections and — most important — the lavender. “I admire them every day,” Cheung said of her plants.