tincture experimentation

[Guest guest]

Hi there, I have been happily lurking and reading soooooo many archives, trying

to get a

grasp of how to take my first baby steps into natural perfumery when I got

inspired to

tincture everything. I've tinctured everything from some berries dangling from

a tree in a

parking lot to the four o'clocks growing in my garden and have come up with a

couple of

interesting results that I'm curious if anyone else has run across.

The first being the four o'clocks. These are prolific little hot pink flowers

that have a very

heavy, sultry floral scent, not as cloying as jasmine, but if you walk through

them, it clings

to you, it reminds me of what you might encounter flopping onto a rich old

ladies favorite

couch. But I digress. I was hoping to capture their scent and I did, but only

on the dry-

out. The first scent that hits you is almost overwhelming bitter. Do you think

this may

change as the tincture matures? It is only 3 weeks old. Does anyone have any

experience

with this garden flower and extracting its perfume?

The second notable experiment was with honey of all things. I used some run of

the mill

tupelo honey from the grocery for my first tincture and the result was

deliciously floral. I

was surprised at how lovely it was. The second tincture from a local bee keeper

who lives

in my suburban neighborhood. That tincture smelled like, well... garbage. At

first I

thought it was just my nose but I have stuck it under half a dosen noses that

had the same

reaction. It makes sense knowing that the bees probably prowl trash cans and

drink the

remnants of mountain dew from drippy bottles but I was shocked at how accurately

the

bees nutritional sources were portrayed in the tincture. Has anyone else

encoutered this?

I'm almost afraid to tincture the goo. Essence of pizza box anyone?

I'm tincturing close to 2 dozen little experiments including clementines,

because the eso is

too expensive to use in any quantity for my purposes, watermellon, because it

survived

our 4th of July party and, my strangest, dog hair because I'm hoping that it

will smell just

like my dog. Why you might ask? I train dogs and bottling a dog's scent would

be

extremely helpful when introducing a new dog into a situation where other dogs

are

present. Their scent is their calling card, and if you spray their scent into

an area, let the

other dogs sniff around and bring the " tinctured " dog in, they would be less

likely to

bombard the tinctured dog, avoiding nervous tension from the bombardment and

reducing aggression. This little step tricks them into thinking that they have

all met

before and the newcomer belongs there. I just attended a conference where the

speaker

was musing that if we could bottle thier scent, group aggression could greatly

be reduced.

This could be great for my industry! And I bet it could be a first for natural

perfumery too,

although I got the idea from Anya's goat hair. Thanks lady! I can't wait to

see if it actually

works, but I have some waiting to do. If it doesn't have the desired effect I

can always just

use it for myself, in case I don't smell enough of dog...like that would ever

happen.

I would love to hear any advice on tincturing, I'm a little unsure how long to

let it mature,

if it differs upon the substance you are tincturing or what? I'm also unsure if

you have to

let it mature after you filter it. Does the filtering stop the scent from

becoming stronger or

can you still expect some change? I'm facinated and am dying to hear of some

other

things to try. I'm hooked! Thanks in advance for any reply.

, a newbie on the lookout for the stinky bees...