Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 Adam Gottschalk <adam@...> wrote: I got to thinking: what about just immersing flowers in liquid fat then skimming them off and repeating? Could a person distill the " enflowered " oil to extract an essence? Would there be any way to do it, to concentrate and separate the essence from the oil? Hi Adam I think what you are talking about is maceration........ check the archives.... steeping fragrant botanics in oil to extract their perfume..... Janita http://www.hayspace.co.uk --------------------------------- is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your freeaccount today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 > > Contemplating one day trying enfleurage, I find the prospect of > laying flowers on solid fat and removing and repeating a little > daunting. I got to thinking: what about just immersing flowers in > liquid fat then skimming them off and repeating? Could a person > distill the " enflowered " oil to extract an essence? Would there be > any way to do it, to concentrate and separate the essence from the oil? I have done that... that is, cover flowers with liquid oil and then filtering them out later. You do get a really nice scent out of jasmine and orange (really grapefruit) blossoms. I haven't done it in a few years, but my mom's navel orange tree graft died last year, and the bitter orange rootstock took over... so I'm looking forward to a lot of guilt free flower picking when it blooms:P. In past years, I used olive oil and sweet almond. With the sweet almond's short shelf life, that was a really bad idea. This year I'm going to use fractionated coconut. It makes a great bath oil and natural 'perfume' with the oil base, and the process for separating the EO from liquid fats would likely be the same as from hard fats such as lard, tho I've never tried to. I never could understand the advantages of the panes of glass and sticking flowers to them to absorb scent. I haven't tried it of course, and it must be a great method or would not have been so popular, but wow... what a lot of labor! Compared to just soaking the flowers in oils and changing them that way through filtration, I can't see why there would be that much extra scent extracted... maybe the spent petals in hard fats don't take as much oil with them when filtered so it's more economical? Maybe the scent is stronger that way, I'd have to try it to know, but again, seems like a lot more trouble and mess, not to mention how fast it would attract ants and wasps if done outdoors. Has anyone tried both methods to compare which is superior? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 > > Contemplating one day trying enfleurage, I find the prospect of > laying flowers on solid fat and removing and repeating a little > daunting. I got to thinking: what about just immersing flowers in > liquid fat then skimming them off and repeating? Could a person > distill the " enflowered " oil to extract an essence? Would there be > any way to do it, to concentrate and separate the essence from the oil? > Hi Adam, First off -- it's not hard to remove the flowers from the solid fat. This is because they're not stuck too hard to the fat -- they are gently lying on it. To remove most of them, you blow on them. You usually end up with just a few that can't be blown off. If they're large enough, I pluck the last ones off with my fingers. If they're smaller, I use a pair of tweezers. I suppose you could use a blow dryer that's on the " air only " setting. The tweezers also come in handy after the flowers are removed, to take out any other undesireables, like that stray cat hair, or an aphid or two that somehow got in with the flowers. Don't want to leave any of those little bits there for very long. Using liquid fat is do-able as well. Then, to separate the essence from the oil, you would wash the oil like you do with the solid fat, with alcohol (Everclear or perfumer's alcohol). Hope this helps, Andrine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 janita morris wrote: > > > > Adam Gottschalk <adam@adamgottschalk .net > <mailto:adam%40adamgottschalk.net>> wrote: I got to thinking: what > about just immersing flowers in > liquid fat then skimming them off and repeating? Could a person > distill the " enflowered " oil to extract an essence? Would there be > any way to do it, to concentrate and separate the essence from the oil? > > Hi Adam > > I think what you are talking about is maceration.. ...... check the > archives.... > steeping fragrant botanics in oil to extract their perfume..... > > Janita > http://www.hayspace .co.uk <http://www.hayspace.co.uk> > > That is maceration and that is how I make a jojoba vanilla oil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 14, 2007 Report Share Posted May 14, 2007 Could a person > distill the " enflowered " oil to extract an essence? Would there be > any way to do it, to concentrate and separate the essence from the oil? > > Hi Adam > steeping fragrant botanics in oil to extract their perfume..... > > Janita > http://www.hayspace .co.uk > > That is maceration and that is how I make a jojoba vanilla oil. yes, and with other fragrant material, by macerating in oil it is one of the ways to extract perfume molecules. Janita Ascent http://www.hayspace.co.uk Janita's Attar http://www.janitasattars.blogspot.com Flowers of Myddfai Embroidery and Natural Perfume Project. http://www.flowersofmyddfaiproject.blogspot.com --------------------------------- Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Tryit now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.