Lavender Lovin’

Part of this trip to Australia was to go visit a lavender farm in Melbourne, courtesy of P&G’s all new Fab Lavender. It was a contest held a couple of months back and the plan was to travel later in the year after Finn was born. But things sort of fell into place so we decided to travel last week instead, hence the crazy timing of the trip.

The place we visited was Warratina Lavender Farm, just off Yarra Valley – about an hour’s drive out from Melbourne city.

It was freezing cold and most of the lavender plants were bare but there were already some pockets of purple among the rows of plants. I imagine it would smell quite divine when all the flowers started blooming in spring. Not to mention the rows and rows of pretty purple everywhere.

There was a nursery with different samples in tiny pots so we could smell each one up close. Which Kirsten gladly obliged. She went along the rows taking a giant whiff of each plant and going “mmmm, smells nice!” like a real connoisseur.

But it did smell really nice and lavender happens to be one of my favorite floral scents. Other flowers like rose and peony all smell too sweet, almost annoyingly so. Plus they always remind me of little old ladies with big hats and crisp English accents.

Lavender, though, has that light freshness that’s just right.

It was quite an experience, strolling among the lavender plants and learning about how they are grown, harvested and pretty much distilled into a fragrance of flowery freshness.

Nice move by Fab to go with Lavender instead of the usual citrusy or overpowering floral scents in their new range of detergent. Incidentally, we had a truckload of clothes to wash when we got back and Kirsten saw the lavender on the detergent box and went “That’s lavender! Remember we smell the purple flower in Melbourne?”

Now every time we have a new batch of freshly-washed laundry, we’ll remember the magic of Warratina Farm in Melbourne.