Talei Or Hydrosol Essences: A Scented Gate to the Body and Soul
This is not just scented water.
It is the breath of the plant — preserved with respect and care.
Each essence is handcrafted and contains not only aroma, but also structure, rhythm, and the living presence of the plant.
How Essences Are Made
Each hydrosol essence in Talei Or is born from a quiet, attentive process.
We do not buy our essences — we distill them ourselves.
By hand. In copper. In small, intentional batches.
Plants are gathered with care — never in haste, never from endangered populations.
Only what grows in abundance, or what we’ve planted and nurtured with love.
Some herbs and seeds come from trusted nurseries in Israel,
where everything is grown with ecological awareness and deep respect for the plants.
Each distillation is a dialogue.
With the land, the light, the soul of the plant.
We don’t rush the process.
We wait for the right moment —
when the leaves carry enough memory,
and the water is ready to become voice.
These are not commercial hydrosols.
They are essences of presence.
Drops of light. Fragments of prayer.
Distilled to guide you back to your own inner garden.
Composition:
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Hydrosol from wild plants
The base of each essence is the water phase obtained through slow steam distillation.
There are no essential oils in the usual sense — only something more subtle: volatile compounds dissolved in water, carrying the scent of the plant, its softness, and clarity.
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Alcohol (up to 20%)
Preserves the essence and helps reveal deeper aromatic notes, enhancing the experience.
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Dead Sea salt
A small amount is added for mineralization and stabilization.
This salt carries the memory of depth and density, and connects the aroma to the body's experience of earth and water.
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Plant-derived glycerin
Softens the essence and adds moisture. It also helps preserve the aroma.
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A single drop of jojoba oil
A nearly invisible binder that gives the scent a bodily dimension.
Jojoba evokes warmth, skin, and grounding.
About the Scent
The scent of a hydrosol essence is not loud.
It won’t fill the room like an essential oil might.
Sometimes, it’s barely perceptible. And that’s its power.
This is not a scent for display — it is a scent for dialogue.
You don’t simply inhale it — you listen to it.
It is the plant’s whisper. Its breath. Its presence.
And only if you open yourself — it will open in return.
Each essence is not a perfume, nor classic aromatherapy.
It is a living trace of the plant — its breath, its story.
It may be subtle, almost imperceptible — and yet unexpectedly deep.
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Origins: The Breath of Plants Across Time
Hydrosol essences are, in essence, water infused with the soul of a plant.
While the term 'hydrosol' is modern, the practice is ancient.
Long before the birth of perfumery, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Jews knew:
plants could be 'heard' not only in smoke or oil, but also in water that had passed through their essence.
Distillation vessels and descriptions appear in alchemical and medical texts from the Middle East and Mediterranean.
Al-Razi (9th c.), a Persian physician, described aromatic waters as part of healing.
Avicenna spoke of distillation as a way of extracting the 'volatile soul' of the plant.
In medieval Europe, 'aqua aromatica' was a staple of women's and monastic medicine cabinets.
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Traces in Jewish Tradition
The Torah and Talmud don’t describe distillation explicitly — but they do speak of inhalation, incense, and combinations of scent and liquid.
In the Ketoret (Temple incense) tradition, it’s written that Cypriot wine was added to the mixture to help the smoke rise. This too is a liquid way of working with aroma.
Water as a conduit of holiness runs through Scripture:
Moses strikes the rock — and water flows.
A woman undergoing purification immerses in the mikveh — a sacred pool of living water.
Myrrh and aloe are mentioned in Song of Songs as the moisture of the beloved’s body.
Scent as a Path to Truth
Of all the senses, smell is the oldest.
It is the first to develop in infancy and the last to fade at the end of life.
You can close your eyes and not see. Cover your ears and not hear. But scent asks for no permission.
It enters — and leaves an imprint.
Scent does not lie. You may not understand where the feeling comes from — but you know it is true.
In Jewish thought, smell is associated with the one sense that remained uncorrupted after the destruction of the Temple.
The sages said: all senses were damaged — except smell, which stayed pure.
Because it is linked to the **neshama** — the breath of the soul.
Scent is not an image, not a sound. It is a touch without form.
It enters the layers where words have not yet reached — but knowing already lives.
There lives memory we do not recall, and intuition we cannot explain.