After extensive playing time and many alchemy levels later, here are the ingredients in my opinion that are the hardest to find.

1. The hardest to find for me has to be Spriggan Sap, here's why:
A. If you do come across a group of Spriggans they only come in a group of 2 or 3.
B. In that group majority of the time, they only drop taproot.
C. They are not found in stores very often, only once in a while.
D. Spriggan Sap is important to me because it is a main ingredient in making fortify blacksmith potions.

2. Dwarven Oil: Only found in Dwemer ruins, hard for low level characters to make it through.

3. Hawk Beak & Feathers: Occasionally you find these in stores, but not often. Out in the wild they are extremely hard to find and may be one of the ingredients you get all the effects for last.

4. Pearl: Extremely hard to find! I've found them below docks in the water but that was only a couple of times. Not sure where the predominant area is for these.

5. Human Flesh & Heart: Can be found on dark mages, Falmer, evil characters. Every time I have found these, they have been inside a fort or cave. You will never find more than 1 per location making this item very rare.

6. Jarrin Root: Only given during the dark brotherhood quest involving the emperor. This item has to shown to do up to 800+ damage.

7. Large and small antlers: If you don't mind killing innocent deer and elk they are easy to come by. Finding them in stores are rare.

8. Powdered Mammoth Tusk: The Wiki shows that it can be located in Giant camps but I have never found it there.

9. Whisp Wrappings: These are not in stores and can be found high up in the mountains. Not recommended for low level characters.

10. Chicken Eggs: if you are having a hard time finding these, they are located in smaller villages under little tents that are chicken roosts. If you see a chicken nearby, the nest is not far away. Also rarely found in stores.

*What are the hardest ingredients for you to find in your opinion?

Nirnroot and crimson nirnroot. The latter because it's only found in Blackreach, and nirnroot because it doesn't grow back, and is only found in random places when you're exploring (unless you buy it of course, but the vendors usually only sell like 2 at a time).

I've never found pearl naturally in over 650 hours of gameplay, I'm sure it's broken ingame.

According to the Wiki only 30 can be found in BlackReach, but they respawn after some time hunting down the others. The good thing about these is that they glow and make a loud chime noise when near them. Very true though, I should have put the Crimson on the list.

Nirnroot does grow back. I discovered this in Morthal. I picked the one next to the Jarl's longhouse and the next time I came through it was back.

Human meat and heart, and pearls are the rarest for me.

Deadra hearts. not many deadra around in skyrim. only a select few quests involve them

I think my nirnroots may regrow for some reason. :/

I'm sure I have picked that nirnroot in the stream just south of Whiterun atleast 3 times now.

And I'm always coming across nirnroots out in the world and think, hey, haven't I already been here and plucked that one?

/me confused

The guy on the second floor of the mage college sells 2 every 48 hours. Depending on how far along you are Arcadia will sell one every 48 hours.

i did not know this. thank you for telling me

I vote pearls

Ninroot grows back. That's why we get the light stacking at a ninroot location. Yields a bright shine after playing for some time - level 40 or 50 (or so).

I've only found one small pearl and one regular pearl after 53 levels.

glow dust and ectoplasm are hard to find. The alchemy shops don't always carry them. I will also vote pearls. I think I've only seen one in 200+ hours

Pearls and small pearls.

Pearls, I have found no Pearls yet. Dwarven Oil, I have only one...

I've never ever seen a pearl in my entire time playing this game. I remember encountering them in Oblivion but I didn't even realise that they were included in Skyrim before reading this thread.

Never seen a pearl but if you want Hawk Beak and Feathers :-


I was rarely seeing Canis Root and as it's a top poison ingredient I covet it, at least I found the area it grows native in now but it's not what you would call plentiful.

I have a question about the pearls - have any of you spent much time underwater along the north coast? I confess I haven't, really, but I would suspect that's where you'd find pearls - in some sort of clam or mollusk on the sea floor?

I became aware of their existance when I found a potion recipe that listed them, but I found the first one very late in the game

1. Nirnroot grows only near water, GLOWS IN THE DARK, and makes a loud humming noise. I say it is very easy to find, especially at night.

2. Human flesh is very hard, the only place I have ever got 1 was in a random container and the one from Aventus Aretino's house.

3. Hawk feather and beaks are easy. Just shoot the hawks out of the sky in Solitude with a bow or magic. Also they fly around the docks.

4. According to UESP powdered mammoth tusks aren't in the right list or something. I have found 1 only, in a random barrel or wooden chest I think.

5. Pearl. I have not found 1 pearl in over 400 hours. Seriosly all the clams I open have only clam meat and I have never seen one in any store.

Pearls, Powdered Mammoth Tusk, Wisp Wrappings, Human Flesh & Human Heart. If you get the Speech perk that allows you to buy and sell anything to Merchants, Alchemists will start to have those first 3 ingredients, still rare, but they will now appear.

Yeah, seen like 1-2 random pearls with about 300 hours in.

I wonder if they plan on having some rare alchemy effects be part of an expansion/DLC. If you look at Oblivion, some of the alchemy effects were pretty rare. . . unless you had the shivering isles expansion, because they added like 30 or 40 new ingredients only found in the Mad God's Realm, and there were some pretty common ingredients with effects that would otherwise have been rare. In Morrowind, they added alchemy ingredients in both Tribunal and Bloodmoon.

Put another way, generally speaking in TES games, for any given 'rare' effect, there is at least one very common ingredient which has it, but since the second ingredient is rare, it doesn't matter how much of the common ingredient you have. But, if they add another land mass, and follow the same pattern (one common with that effect, and one rare, across that land mass), then you can gather the common ingredient from each land mass and combine them to have almost as many of the 'rare' alchemy potion as you want.

Ecoplasm. I've got the ghost sword from a quest and need 3 ecoplasms to upgrade it. I fear I'll never find them.

Original poster is pretty accurate. The Merchant perk makes all of those appear on vendors, though still rarely.

Am I the only one who doesn't have trouble finding pearls? Just putter around underwater, the clams are down there. I've found several near shipwrecks.