Tincturing Absolutes

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I searched the archives and read the FAQ on " Infusing and Tincturing.doc "

but I still have a question. I hope this isn't considered inappropriate for

the list. I bought some cocoa absolute and it's a thick viscous mass that

smells divine. But how do I get it into a perfume? I assume I have to

tincture it in alcohol. Do I put a few drops into some perfumer's alcohol

and wait until it dissolves? Or do I put it in oil and infuse it? I've used

benzoin resin (a thick liquid) in jojoba oil and it never seems to blend, it

just sits at the bottom of the bottle, so I think there are some materials

that require alcohol tincturing and others that require oil infusions. Any

advice on where to go for a list of such things? I hesitate to buy more

absolutes before I know what to do with them. I especially want to try

seaweed, beeswax, cognac, green tea and hay absolutes. Thanks!

[Guest guest]

On Apr 30, 2008, at 8:10 PM, christina cheney wrote:

> Hi Everyone,

> I searched the archives and read the FAQ on " Infusing and

> Tincturing.doc "

> but I still have a question. I hope this isn't considered

> inappropriate for

> the list. I bought some cocoa absolute and it's a thick viscous

> mass that

> smells divine. But how do I get it into a perfume? I assume I have to

> tincture it in alcohol. Do I put a few drops into some perfumer's

> alcohol

> and wait until it dissolves? Or do I put it in oil and infuse it?

> I've used

> benzoin resin (a thick liquid) in jojoba oil and it never seems to

> blend, it

> just sits at the bottom of the bottle, so I think there are some

> materials

> that require alcohol tincturing and others that require oil

> infusions. Any

> advice on where to go for a list of such things? I hesitate to buy

> more

> absolutes before I know what to do with them. I especially want to try

> seaweed, beeswax, cognac, green tea and hay absolutes. Thanks!

My approach is where I have arrived after a year of diving in. I

don't dilute materials before blending them; I just can't imagine it.

I can, however, easily wrap my mind around blending ingredients into

what will be a finished perfume. I don't even see much advantage to

blending individual accords; the way an accord smells is _not_ the

way it will smell in the finished perfume.

For thick and viscous absolutes, a boiling-water bath does the trick.

You need to let the absolute sit in the boiling water for a few

minutes; when you take it off the burner, take the water-bath vessel

and the absolute both from the heat together to begin adding the

essence. When I'm finished blending, 90% of the time I put the beaker

on a burner, on a very low heat (grape alcohol boils at a much lower

temperature than water), to make sure all ingredients are dissolved.

For concretes, I use an itsy-bitsy shovel to scoop the material out

and guesstimate the number of drops.

Anything in jojoba (or any other oil/wax) and many CO2 extracts will

not dissolve in alcohol. I only use 190-proof organic grape alcohol.

I'm pretty sure the aversion to alcohol stems from the inferior,

denatured, and toxic " alcohol " used in the perfumes sold at

department-store perfume counters, which will give anyone a rash. The

organic alcohol I use evaporates within seconds and so far has not

given a single one of my test subjects any kind of skin reaction.

People get used to thinking they can't use alcohol perfumes without

realizing that real, high-grade perfume alcohol is a completely

different animal from most. It smells nice and is benign. I wouldn't

use any other substrate (unless required). If you think of what you

blend in as a lens, alcohol gives you the clearest, most unhampered

view of your perfume.