Did you know that in the past you had to comb a goat’s beard to obtain the fragrant labdanum resin?

Sometimes strange practices are used to harvest fragrant substances, and brushing a goat’s hair is definitely one of them.

Labdanum is the dark, sticky resin coming from shrubs of Cistus ladaniferus or Cistus creticus, commonly known as rock rose. (“Cistus oil” is distilled from the leaves rather than the gum.) The smell is very characteristic and the resin has a long history of being used both by physicians and perfumers.