Black Sheep Farms is an Australian outfit doing botanical oils and terpene blends for the aromatherapy side of vaping. Not nicotine, not herb. Aroma. They’re the sort of thing you reach for when you’ve got a diffuser or an oil-friendly vaporiser and you want a proper scent rather than a chemical hit. People here sought them out because the blends are made locally, they smell like the plant they came from, and they don’t drown everything in sweetener.
The range is small and that’s the point. Two things really: the terpene blends, and the essential oil sets. Here’s each, with the honest version.
Botanical terpene blends
Terpenes are the aromatic compounds that give plants their smell. Pine, citrus, that earthy note in fresh herbs, all terpenes. Black Sheep Farms blends them into ready-made profiles you run through a diffuser or an oil-capable vaporiser for the aroma alone.
These are concentrated, so go light. A drop or two is plenty, and tipping in more doesn’t make it better, it just makes it sharp and a bit headache-y. Run a diffuser cool, somewhere around 100-130°C, and the lighter top notes come through without scorching. Push past 150°C and you start cooking off the delicate stuff and you’re left with the heavy base notes only.
Who they suit: anyone who likes building a scent and fiddling with ratios. The quirk worth knowing is that terpenes are strong solvents. They’ll soften some plastics and lift the print off a cheap bottle label over time, so keep them in glass and away from anything you care about. Store them in the dark too. Light and heat fade the aroma faster than you’d think.
Essential oil sets
The sets are the easier entry point. Single-plant oils, the familiar ones, eucalyptus and lavender and peppermint and the like, bundled so you’ve got a few on hand instead of one lonely bottle. Pure oils rather than blends, so what you smell is what’s on the label.
For a diffuser these sit happily in the same cool range, about 110-140°C, where the oil carries on the steam without burning. Eucalyptus and the minty ones are punchy, so a single drop fills a room. The florals are softer and you can be a touch more generous.
They suit someone new to this who wants to learn what each plant actually smells like before mixing their own. The honest catch: essential oils are not vape juice and not herb. Don’t put them in a tank, don’t put them in a herb chamber. They’re for diffusing and aromatherapy devices built for oils, full stop. Used right they’re lovely. Used in the wrong gear they ruin the gear.
Living with them
Easiest range we stock to live with, really. There’s nothing to dismantle. The main job is storage: glass bottles, lids on tight, somewhere cool and dark. A drawer beats a sunny windowsill every time.
If your diffuser leaves a film in the water well, a wipe with a little rubbing alcohol clears the oily residue between scents. Do that when you switch from a strong one like eucalyptus to something subtle, or the last blend lingers and muddies the next. Bottles don’t really expire, but the aroma dulls over a year or two once opened, so buy what you’ll use.
Which one suits you
Quick version. Want to build and tweak your own scent profiles: the terpene blends. Want pure single-plant oils to learn the basics and keep a few staples around: the essential oil sets. Either way, mind your device, glass not plastic, and start with less than you think.
- Browse the full essential oils range for single-plant options.
- After scent rather than a pure oil? See the fragrance oils.
- Everything from this maker sits under Black Sheep Farms.