Tincture, Maceration or Enfleurage ...?

This is a problem that has been wrestled with by a great many people over the centuries and a really good solution hasnt been found.

Maceration fails because they are such big, chunky flowers compared to the amount of scent they produce - you dont really get any appreciable scent in the oil but you do get a lot of watery rubbish. Tincturing will have the same problem - you end up with way too much water in the alcohol and no noticeable scent.

Enfleurage was the traditional way to do it and is still practiced - I have some palm oil infused with the scent of stargazer lilies in that way - the bad news though is that while it smells lovely it really isnt strong enough to be any use in perfumery. Ive never attempted to do the process myself but I imagine youd need a very large number of lily plants indeed to get anything useful - certainly more than 20.

My recommendation is that you enjoy the lilies when they flower and use their scent to guide you in reproducing that scent using other materials - something Ive been working on for the last 18 months or so as it happens.

Im not sure how you would go about enfleurage with fractionated coconut oil - as I understand it the process requires a solid fat - traditionally it was done with animal fats, but modern practice is to use palm oil, which is solid at room temperature.

As to tincturing, if you want to attempt that, the trick is going to be to capture the scent into the alcohol without taking the large amount of water that will be in the thick lily petals as well. Ive never tried this, but my suggestion would be to pass many flowers through the same ethanol, with each flower remaining in contact with the ethanol for only a very short time. Perhaps half an hour or so: any longer and you are sure to get a lot of water passing into the ethanol too.

As I believe the scent of the lily is on the surface of the petals, and there is very little of it compared to the size of the flower, I think the trick is going to be to keep the flower (or at least the petals) as intact as possible.

Ideally have the ethanol moving the whole time - so in a large sealed flask on an automatic stirrer for example - the best would be the sort that vibrates the flask - you might be able to rig a makeshift apparatus using something like a lawnmower engine to create the vibration to avoid having to buy a special machine - do be careful with ethanol near engines though as the vapour is highly flammable.

Good luck!

I have a couple of questions in regard to this thread,

1) Is it actually possible to make a tincture using oil instead of alcohol? The only reason I ask is that I read somewhere you can't legally sell perfumes made with vodka or other similar alcohols.

2) I would like to mix tinctures with essential oils, is this at all possible? Perhaps for a body spray instead of a perfume, given that tinctures are much lighter in strength.

I'm new to all of this (the forums included) and any help or tips you guys can provide would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

I'm throwing in my pennyworth, having looked at enfleurage for myself with only moderate results to date.

I have tried it with slightly warmed oil for the flowers whose petals don't last long enough for cold enfleurage. The fat needs filtering every charge and 10 - 20 immersions was suggested. Mine was very delicate and only just smelled of something using wild violet petals, then I ran out of petals. I then charged my weak oil with more essential oils and used it for bath oil.

For smaller volumes of flowers, I had been wondering if one should try putting the layer of fat around a wide necked jar, open enough to get your fist inside, so that the headspace is contained in a small space as well as the petal contact. Without many flowers, one may not get enough recharges to make a strong enough pomade. A rich pomade requires about 36 charges from what I understand of it, but containing the headspace alongside the fat in a closed jar may work in the same way that the top of a chassis performs.

Some points I noted were:- it is vital the petals are dry as moisture will turn the fat. The other is to take the petals out the second they have begun to whither because the odour will change for the worst and to remove every remaining bit with tweezers. Another thing was to roughen or comb the surface of the fat to increase the absorption area.

Approx maths.. some suggested proportions. Each measurement of fat to have been in contact with about 2.5 - 3 times its weight in flowers (in the case of jasmine) during the enfleurage period. Apparently this varies with the flower used. The jasmine I was reading about was changed every 24 hours, then the top chassis moved to the bottom and charged. The whole process taking about 70 days. I suppose that must have meant they recharged each side of the chassis 35 times. Needless to say I haven't done this one yet.

@Chris. I have seen a stargazer lily scent selling online that uses Organic palm oil as the fat.

Excellent post Mumsy. Thank you. I wanna buy the Stargazer Lily scent.....

It was here.

http://www.victorie-inc.us/floral-enfluerage.html

Thank you. Now I have a question: Can I make a oil base perfume from a pomade? I have some dilutions in Coconut Fract Oil and DPG and am wondering if I can add them to the pomade.

Yes I bought some from them a few months ago - Ive been meaning to do a proper write up of it here actually as several people have asked - I bought a few of their enfleurage products.

The lily is lovely, but really quite weak. To make any significant amount of perfume incorporating it will work out terrifyingly expensive. Im thinking in terms of using the palm oil to incorporate into a solid perfume, for a special gift, which I think will make the best of it. But Im quite a way from being ready to do that because business picked up suddenly last month and I had to put the project on hold.

I think the FCO will work with the pomade, as both are fixed oils, but Im not sure the DPG will - Ive not tried it though so it might be worth a quick test with a small amount.