YLANG-YLANG PLANTATIONS AND DISTILLERY

We called - and rightly so - Nosy Be the island to perfume. The East road is surrounded by plantations of these tortured trees that extend to a loss of sight. Ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata), which belongs to the family of annonacées, originates in the Philippines (in Malay dialect, this name means «flower of flowers»); it was introduced in the Comoros in 1909 (in particular Mayotte: Moreover, the arms of Mayotte, adopted in 1982, have two flowers of ylang-ylang on the central shield), and today the archipelago is the world's largest producer (about 60 tonnes per year). Its strange shape is due to successive sizes designed so that flowers can always be harvested at the height of men and women. At 3 km from Andoany, at the end of a road which appears left of the road, the main distillery handles several tons of flowers per day; it aims to extract essential oil by distillation distillation for the preparation of cosmetics and perfumes (approximately 100 kg of flowers are required to produce about 2,5 kg of oil), but also of a lower quality oil, named cananga petrol, extracted from the tails of the distillate. A pipe: The best oil for ylang-ylang comes from flowers picked in the early morning, in the early days of summer! It blends perfectly with essential oil of lemon or bergamot. Its therapeutic virtues make it its glory! It would slow down the heart rate and combat tachycardia and hypertension; like the essential oils of rose, jasmine or sandalwood, it would have anti-depression, aphrodisiac and sedative properties. In the distillery you can see the extraction of the essences and buy small bottles of ylang-ylang and various souvenirs.