Thyme oil is water and steam distilled from the partially dried wild herb thymus vulgaris distillation is mainly undertaken in spain but also occurs elsewhere in the mediterranean region there are many different species of thyme and within thymus vulgaris there are a variety of chemotypes that change the constituent make up of the oil significantly the most common chemotypes are quotthymolquot and quotcarvacrolquot which contain high levels of toxic phenols up to 60 thymol and ca