Vetiver oil for hair: what it is, what it does, how we blend it

Vetiver oil is distilled from grass roots and smells like it: smoky, earthy and green, the deep note under cedarwood in Clean Line at half a percent.

Role	Essential oil, warm woody family
On the label	Vetiveria Zizanoides Root Oil
In our blends	Clean Line 0.5%
Builder limit	Up to 1% of a hair blend (all essential oils together: 1%)

What it is

Steam-distilled from the washed, dried roots of Vetiveria zizanoides, the oil is a complex mix of sesquiterpene alcohols (khusimol, vetiverol) and ketones, among the heaviest molecules in any essential oil. It is amber to dark brown, thick enough to pour slowly, and one of the slowest to evaporate, so a little lasts all day.

How it feels on hair

At 0.5% it gives a dry, smoky, rooty scent that sits under a wood or citrus and keeps it on the hair; at 1% it is dark and assertive. The blend's weight and finish are unchanged.

Who reaches for it

Short hair and fades that want an unperfumed, masculine-leaning oil (Clean Line, 0.5% with cedarwood), and anyone who likes earthy scents. Less suited to florals.

Where it sits in our blends

Clean Line carries vetiver at 0.5% (with Jojoba 52.3%, Fractionated Coconut 26.2%, Black Seed 10%, and more). The blends with a product page can be bought as they are; every one of them can be opened in the builder and changed oil by oil.

How to compose with it

Essential oils share at most 1% of a hair blend; the builder allows vetiver up to 1%. Pair it with Atlas cedarwood, bergamot or black pepper-style spice over jojoba and fractionated coconut with black seed and hemp seed.

Compose with vetiver Find your formula

Weighed to the gram and blended to order in New Jersey, with the recipe printed on the label. For external use only; patch test before first use. Every oil, with its INCI name, is in the oil library.