Hydrosols - How to Prevent Rancid Floral H2o?

[Guest guest]

Hi KB,

> Can anyone tell me what (if any) can we use to preserve rose floral H20?

> we bought a bottle of it about three months ago and it has developed

> brown chunks and has a foul sour smell. We've never had this problem

> before with our floral waters. Please answer to kbestehair@...

> ....thank you for any help! KB

It's too late for that bottle as you either have a fungal or microbial

colony enjoying life in it now - maybe both. For the future, you gotta

hope the hydrosol/hydrolat you buy is not already contaminated .. and

then take proper care to not contaminate it after you buy it.

When there is water or moisture, critters like that can grow and they

will grow. It's a rare essential oil that can be contaminated because

almost all of them have antimicrobial/antifungal properties .. not the

same for the ALL hydrosols even though there is a bit of the essential

oil in the hydrosol. There are some exceptions here .. like oregano and

rosemary hydrosol .. I think it would be real hard to contaminate them

but they will deteriorate with age.

When a hydrosol/hydrolat exits the still, it is pure .. there are NO

foreign critters in it as they couldn't have survived the distillation

process. If the distiller stores the hydrosol in a sterile container

(and a conscientious distiller will) you can expect that it will arrive

at the bulk/wholesale buyer's warehouse in the same condition. But that

buyer has a large container and must put it into smaller containers to

resell it .. here is the second opportunity for contamination. Finally,

it is shipped to the end-user (you) and if it was shipped in any type of

container besides glass (and odds are it was) you need to get it into a

glass container soon. But that glass container and the cap must be

sterile. Later, just as folks should protect their cosmetics (and many

don't) you should avoid touching the lip of the bottle and/or the inside

of the cap. And if you pour some out and don't use it all, don't pour

it back into that bottle. A couple of critters sneak in and they start

to multiply fast and within 48-72 hours, they have a colony.

Assuming you've got the hydrosol in a sterile container and it has not

been contaminated - you gotta store it correctly. Light and Oxygen are

necessary for folks to live - but they are enemies of man as they cause

us to become old - you might say we oxidize .. ;-) Light and Oxygen are

also the enemies of all chemicals .. medicines, cosmetics and whatnot in

the bathroom, foodstuff, essential oils and hydrosols. All of these,

except human critters, should be stored away from light and oxygen.

Hydrosols should be stored in dark bottles and out of direct/indirect

light. You can reduce dead space in the bottle to keep out oxygen. Pour

into smaller sterile bottles as you use the hydrosol - some folks drop

sterile glass beads in to raise the level of the liquid and reduce the

dead space. Or you can do as many folks are starting to do and as we do

in my company for hydrosols and essential oils - nitrogen flush. We

squirt nitrogen into the storage cans/bottles as it is heavier than

oxygen and displaces it. Nitrogen flushing will work on smaller bottles

but you'd have to apply it each time you opened the bottle so it's more

practical for storage. You can buy small cans of nitrogen in many wine

shops .. folks in the know use it when they don't polish off the entire

bottle of a fine wine.

So - to increase the shelf life of a hydrosol you avoid contaminating it

and keep it as you would an essential oil ... with one exception. You

keep it in a dark bottle, out of sight - out of the light, cap locked

tight and treat it right. Don't expose it to rapid, extreme temperature

changes. Reduce the deadspace and the exception I mentioned above is

refrigeration - I don't recommend that for steam/hydro-steam distilled

essential oils, but I do recommend refrigeration for cold-pressed oils

and hydrosols. Obviously I can't keep 50 kilo barrels in a refrigerator

so we have a storage room without windows that stays pretty cool most of

the time and we fire up the air-conditioner when necessary - which is

rare as our US operation is in the Appalachian Mountains ... ;-)

Y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

Wholesale/Retail GC Tested EOs, Rose Otto, Hydrosols and lots of other

goodies. For a wholesale price list, ask me and I'll e-mail it.