The ylang ylang blossom grows on bushy trees in tropical regions. Young Living’s is grown on their farm in Ecuador. In the tropics, it’s always growing season, so the trees have to be trimmed regularly so that the blossoms are easily accessible. Why? Because they are picked by hand! That’s right! Since the tress bloom year round, not all of the blossoms are ripe at the same time. So each blossom is inspected for just the right color and scent before harvested. The rest are left to be inspected at the next harvest. If a flower is left too long, the fragrance reflects the over-ripening. Every worker on the Young Living farm is trained to look for the blooms that are prime for distilling. Now, can you imagine if all the flowers were harvested at once, regardless of ripeness??? That would lead to a very inferior oil. Yet that’s the industry standard, green or overripe blossoms are acceptable.

The actual distillation process is another area that Young Living excels. Ylang ylang flowers must be distilled immediately after picking. No drying or curing time to extract the best oil. Most others will wait up to 24 hours before they see the distilling pot. And speaking of the distilling pot, not just any old pot will do. Ylang ylang requires a smaller sized cooker to provide better steam saturation of the plant material which increases the extraction of valuable constiuents in the first distillation. As a matter of fact, YL only uses the oil from the first HOUR of distillation with this plant. No diluted, extended, inadequate oil here! So glad YL is dedicated to getting the best quality of essential oil out of every plant!