Scent Eating Skin: Fact or Fiction

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Post by Val the Cookie Queen

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New Year´s Salutations APJ.

I saw the New Year in wearing Bandit EdP and Extrait together. An old fragrance but new to me. I received a large decant of the EdP as a gift and went straight out and bought the Extrait. Sometimes you just know. I have made two perfume related resolutions for the new year. Not to walk around with my nose glued to my wrist, as it totally distorts my impressions, being the first. The scent sticks in my nose cavity and that is useless. Second, I am not going to investigate note lists before trying anything new, which will mean walking round the Esxence in Milan with a blindfold on I expect. Just looking at a list stops me from trying so much. Not that I expect to like any more than I usually do, but you never know!

Scent Eating Skin: Fact or Fiction

Each time I come across the phrase “on my scent eating skin” I roll my eyes loudly. I have done absolutely no research on this subject matter, presuming it to be a myth; but a more serious interest wast triggered by a panic phone call from a dear perfumista (S) friend about a month ago. She had ordered and received a bottle of perfume that she had loved on me. Not exactly a blind by as she had spent the best part of a day continually sniffing my hand. As we perfume geeks do.

“Val, I generously sprayed this perfume on and in less than ten minutes it is GONE.” Dead. Deceased. Departed. Finished. Spent. Exhausted. It is no more. Bringing to mind Monty Python´s Dead Parrot Sketch. I quietly rolled my eyes, a little unsure at this point. “Perhaps there has been mistake at the production end?” she asked me. I doubted it but stranger things have happened.

Belvedere Palace, Vienna - AUSTRIA WikimediaWikipedia

Weird. I hopped on a train to Vienna to smell this thing for myself. It is always better to have a witness in a serious situation so we called in the help of another perfumista (M). The three of us sat comfortably around a table, ordered breakfast and cracked out the bottle in question. With intently serious faces, for this was a scientific analysis, S and I heftily spritzed. M remained on the sideline as an impartial judge.

Before breakfast arrived the perfume (an EdP by the way) on S had disintegrated. Disappeared. Time elapsed was probably around ten minutes. I got about 12 hours out of it. WTF? M was equally stunned. S told us that this was not the only fragrance that disappeared on her. I must admit over the years I have been gobsmacked at the amount of fragrance that S sprays not to even mention the fact that she FINISHES bottles, something I have never done. I should add here that I also generously dabbed S in a favorite extrait of mine (guess) and within 45 minutes it was also history. Perturbed.

vienna austria assisi church building PicabayPixabay

I don´t think I own a perfume that gives me less than 12 hours of pleasure minimum. It has truly got me wondering. Are skins really that different? Is that why S smells a million dollars in Amouage and I do not?

There is a happy ending to the story. I received the aforemetioned ordered bottle for Christmas. 🙂

Dear readers of APJ, perhaps you could be kind enough to take time for a quick comment? Do you have an opinion on the scent eating skin theory. Do some skins just outright reject fragrances? Are S and I at opposite ends of the spectrum, both being extreme? It is no wonder that I am scared spitless of spraying something unknown onto my skin if I have to live with it for the next fortnight.

Vienna Scott Swigart some statue in vienna FlickrFlickr

Wishing you all strength for 2016.
Keep on truckin’.

Bussis
CQ

CO2 Extracts and Extraction Simplified

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Post by Suzanne R Banks

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Hi APJ,

CO2 Extracts and Extraction Simplified

EssentialOils thewellnessdoerPhoto Stolen thewellnessdoer

When we talk about essential oils, it’s often an umbrella term for many different kinds of aromatic liquids.

Essential Oils

These are usually water/steam distilled, and this is the most common way to date that oils are extracted. All the oils you would commonly buy today would be steam and water distilled and this process is simple, traditional and dates back through the past century.

Absolutes

These are usually made flowers or very delicate plants where a chemical extraction process is used (see my article Absolutes? Not Absolutely) but they resemble essential oils in viscosity and are used in the same way as essential oils. They tend to be more concentrated then essential oils.

Oleoresins and Resinoids

These are highly concentrated liquid extracts that are a combination of resins and aromatic oils. The plants they come from have a high resin content so they fall into their own category. Once again they can be used in the same way as essential oils.

Picture 010Photo Stolen Cottonseed Oil Flickr

CO2 Extracts

CO2 Extraction is also called Super-critical CO2 extraction and it produces a couple of plant products – extracts or selects, and totals.

A relative newcomer in the world of extraction, the name makes it sound bad but it’s not! There are lots of good things about this process and I’ll try to sum it up briefly and succinctly.

The extraction process uses carbon dioxide heated to a degree where it has both liquid and gaseous properties- this part is the super-critical part. It’s less hot them steam and water distillation so this is a bonus as it doesn’t change the plant materials as much. It’s this liquid form that extracts the volatile plant material. Aromatic oils, resins and other cellular materials like pigments are extracted by the liquid CO2 which evaporates easily, leaving a substance that more closely resembles the plant.

CO2 extracts more closely aromatically resemble the whole plant, whereas essential oils are specifically the volatile oil component of the plant.

CO2 extracts may be better scent wise, or less attractive. It depends on the plant.

Some CO2 extracts that are now available are –
ambrette, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, clove, nutmeg, caraway, fennel, ginger
sea buckthorn
amaranth
cocoa, coffee, vanilla
pomegranate
evening primrose, rosehip
chamomile, champaka, ginger lily, jasmine, juniper, linden blossom, patchouli
arnica, calendula, lavender, hops, St Johns wort,
angelica root, orris root, kava
agarwood, frankincense, galbanum, myrrh, spikenard

I don’t use CO2 extracts extensively in my practice yet, as many of the extracts are semi-solid and aren’t easy to work with. It seems some of the extracts are better suited to using in creams and lotions. As I move more into the area of natural perfumery I know I’ll use some of the extracts more often. I haven’t actually spent the time looking at the analysis of each oil, which will indicate the therapeutic property of the “oil”.

According to Nature’s Gift, “totals” are a secondary product of the CO2 process: “are usually thick and pasty due to the beneficial fats, resins and waxes they contain that come from the plant material itself. These totals are soluble in essential oils and vegetable oils. …. These potent extracts are wonderful for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The Calendulas extract, for example, in a dosage of 2 grams extract to 1000 grams ointment is effective for it’s anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial activity.”

None of my suppliers in Sydney provide these “totals” and I don’t have first hand knowledge of how they work – but it sounds interesting!

Good luck with the CO2 extracts!

Suzanne R Banks XXX

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Below you’ll find an extremely interesting video.

Supercritical CO2 extraction of cinnamon, coffee, and vanilla with dry ice