Clary Sage from PA clouding up my top accords

[Blitzkrieg]

Today I made 3 Top accords in small amounts.

The first came out smelling good, but completely cloudy. I was using 7 ingredients and thought, at first, it may have been the Lemon.

The second and slightly different accord, sans Lemon, smelled good also, yet was still cloudy.

I then figured it would be a process of elimination and luckily chose to leave out Clary Sage on the third attempt.

It came out clear and smelled the best of the three.

Anyone else have this experience with this material?

[Bill Roberts]

Not that particular one, which would be the Vielle according to the offering and the SDS posted, which is a quality company.

Ordinarily on first addition of alcohol when diluting clary sage eo it goes cloudy but once to diluted to say 20% (which might be overkill in this regard) it will go clear again.

That said, a differing process or differing starting material could result in different amount of whatever material that may cause this and it's not necessarily a problem. Especially once in a final fragrance as opposed to accord having much higher percentage than a final fragrance likely would.

So far as smelling better without it, IMO clary sage is kind of a specialty material. Sometimes just the thing, but not the thing for most formulas.

EDIT: Trying to look into this a little as it is interesting, I found myself a little confused. Bo Jensen says "The essential oil is isolated by steam distillation of the flowering tops. Around 250 compounds are identified, the main constituents being (-)-linalyl acetate (67 %) and (-)-linalool (16 %). The ambergris-like nuances are due to oxidative degradation products of the diterpene sclareol, first of all (-)-ambrox. Sclareol is the main constituent (> 70 %) of the essential oil (concrete) made by extraction."

What is confusing is that he refers to the concrete as being "essential oil" as well. I knew that or similar for orris but not for clary sage.

Sclareol would plausibly give the above described behavior. I have none as the pure material. However the Vielle SDS seems consistent with steam-distilled which apparently would have little sclareol. The EB Clary Sage US and Clary Sage Russia essential oils show none and nearly none in their respective CoA's. The EB Clary Sage Absolute does not have a detailed analysis but claims sclareol and linalyl acetate as the principal constituents.

If you like you could check with PA and see if they'll say if the supplier definitely was Vielle and it definitely is the steam-distilled. If it's still cloudy with many parts alcohol per part of the essential oil, I'd suspect it was the concrete type of essential oil, in which case it would seem not to be the Vielle steam-distilled. The concrete type would be a quite different odor quality -- not saying worse, saying different -- than the steam-distilled.

If the smell is very fresh, a blast of freshness, then I doubt it is the concrete type, and you could discard the above 2 paragraphs. That would be consistent with the steam-distilled type.

While I do not have the concrete to say for myself, TGSC says "sweet bitter winey herbal." Of sclareol itself, the primary constituent, they say "sweet balsam clary amber woody weedy."

[Blitzkrieg]

Thanks Bill. I used it real instead of pre-diluted and used approx. 1 drop.

A half-day has passed and it's it's still cloudy, but appears to be clearer than when I made it.

I didn't mean to insinuate that the smell wasn't good when I said the following accord smelled better. It did smell better, but not because I left out the sage. My ratios were just better and more balanced.

[Bill Roberts]

Oh! Well if the accord is pure aromamaterials with no alcohol this might plausibly be normal.

[pkiler]

Just let the diluted perfume sit undisturbed in a beaker, covered. It will clear, with your layer of cloudy sitting on the bottom. Just ladle out the top without disturbing the sediment that settled. Same with Citrus perfumes.

[Blitzkrieg]

Just let the diluted perfume sit undisturbed in a beaker, covered. It will clear, with your layer of cloudy sitting on the bottom. Just ladle out the top without disturbing the sediment that settled. Same with Citrus perfumes.

Thanks Paul.

[beyondperfumer]

Today I made 3 Top accords in small amounts.

The first came out smelling good, but completely cloudy. I was using 7 ingredients and thought, at first, it may have been the Lemon.

The second and slightly different accord, sans Lemon, smelled good also, yet was still cloudy.

I then figured it would be a process of elimination and luckily chose to leave out Clary Sage on the third attempt.

It came out clear and smelled the best of the three.

Anyone else have this experience with this material?

yea and alot of others, it tends to overtake if not used properly, best a 10 or 1 percent and used in traces.

[Sicomoro]

Fwiw I have it also and haven’t had cloudiness issues. I wonder if it’s an interaction with something else? But yes like already said.. time will do you well