Most skincare ingredients arrive in a drum from a supplier. Ours grows underground in a grove our founder planted herself. Here is how a black truffle is grown, found and harvested, and why that matters when you are deciding what to put on your skin.
A truffle is not planted, it is waited for
The Périgord black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, is a fungus that lives in partnership with the roots of certain trees, usually oak or hazel. Growers buy young trees whose roots have been inoculated with truffle spores and plant them in a grove, called a truffière.
Then they wait. It usually takes years before the first truffle forms, and nothing about it is guaranteed. Research on the Australian industry has found that not every inoculated tree is successfully colonised by the truffle fungus, and some groves never produce the harvests they were planned for.
A short winter season
Black truffles ripen in winter. In Western Australia, the country's largest producing region, the state agriculture department says the season runs from late May to the end of August, peaking in July. Australia now grows truffles for markets around the world, after its first commercial plantings in the 1990s.
The Peptide Crème to renew, hydrate, strengthen and protect. The Eye Crème for fine lines and tired looking eyes. Or both together in the Black Diamond Duo.
Found by nose, harvested by hand
Ripe truffles sit hidden underground and give off a strong aroma. Trained dogs find them, and each truffle is lifted carefully by hand so the roots and the next harvest are not damaged. In Europe, pigs were traditionally used; our founder, Sabina, works her grove with her dogs and pigs.
Our grove
Sabina's truffle grove is inside the Flaxman Crater in South Australia's Flaxman Valley, a 35 million year old meteor crater. She grows black truffles there and hand harvests them for Truff’elle.
Growing our own means we know exactly where the truffle comes from, when it was harvested and how it was handled.
From truffle to cream
A whole truffle is not something you can put in a cream as it is. We bio-ferment it using our own process, developed over years of research. Fermentation breaks large compounds down into smaller ones and can increase an ingredient's biological activity. The result is the world's first bio-fermented black truffle skincare, naturally rich in peptides and amino acids.
It is then formulated in Melbourne with cosmetic chemist Raniya, stability tested, made in Australia and filled into glass jars.
Why rarity matters to you
Rarity on its own does not make an ingredient good for skin. What matters is what is inside it, and black truffle contains antioxidants, amino acids, natural sugars and fatty acids that are genuinely useful for skin. Our Black Truffle Science page lists the research.
Rarity does explain the price, and why an honest truffle brand will show you where its truffle comes from. Ours goes into The Peptide Crème and The Eye Crème.
