Monday, July 9, 2018

Class in Session: Enfleurage, First Attempt


One of the joys of living where I currently do has been the abundance of flowers that grow both on the property and nearby. I've enjoyed working with them more closely than in past years for potions and magick, and they've given my soul a bit of revivification. Earlier this year, it was a profusion of scented purple beauty, Lilac and Wisteria. Now, a vine of Confederate Jasmine is scrambling up the side of the house, covering it with dark green foliage and little white flowers of incredible fragrance.

With my new interest in the powers of scent and essential oil blends, never mind the price of Jasmine oil, I thought I might try to catch some of the scent. But how? Flowers macerated in alcohol don't stay nice for long, and even if I had a distiller, steam distillation is too gnarly and harsh a procedure for Jasmine.

 I decided to attempt a new technique: Enfleurage.
 Enfleurage is the oldest known method of capturing a scent, harkening from humankind's earliest fascination with the bewitching fragrances of flowers and subsequent efforts to create ointments and oils to use on the body, in sacred temples, and elsewhere.
 Here's how it's done.

(Information gathered from the full story at http://www.puregreenmag.com/pure-green-blog/enfleurage, courtesy of Hollie Poscai. Hollie's experience was with Lilacs, but her account is informative and useful. I agree with her, by the way: One of my favourite tricks was to gather a bunch of Lilacs, tell my mom, "Close your eyes and smell!", and then hold them under her waiting nose. Her response was invariably happy.)


"Because I am my mother's daughter, I have inherited the same love of these beautiful spring flowers. Not only for their symbolism --- harbingers of spring and symbolic of early love --- but for their beauty and especially for their intoxicating scent.
 This year, as a bunch that a friend cut for me sat in my dining room, I wondered why I had not come across more commercial perfumes or oils which captured their fragrance, and looked into if it were possible to extract their scent myself.
 I discovered that it could be done at home using the oldest form of scent preservation, called enfleurage.
 Enfleurage is typically used with delicate flowers, such as lilacs, whose scent cannot be preserved very well by other methods such as distillation or tincturing. I did a little research and was ready to try it myself. . . ."

As a do-it-yourselfer or DIYer in modern speak, Hollie prepared her own lard as a base:

"I had my butcher put the suet through his meat grinder, so that it would be in tiny pieces, making it easier to heat and melt. I placed it in a pot over low heat, and it immediately began to melt into a clear oily liquid. Once it had all melted down, I removed any impurities first with a slotted spoon, then put it all through a fine strainer, and then poured it twice through cheesecloth. It is important that your fat is as pure and scent-free as possible.
 I then poured it into a glass casserole dish and allowed it to harden overnight. Before it was completely solid, I scored the surface in a diamond pattern, which is beneficial in allowing the fragrance to absorb throughout the fat."


Finding enough Lilacs, such tiny flowers, to fill a pan two inches deep, multiple times, was not easy --- especially since you don't want to take too much from one bush. Housing and commercial developments had also ravaged the local wild Lilac trees. Finally she had enough, of several varieties:

"When I got home, I placed wax paper down on my kitchen table and got to work removing the blooms from the stems, and placing them on the wax paper. I was careful to make sure that there was no greenery --- leaves, stamen, stems --- with my blooms, as they can cause rot and fungal diseases and spoil your scent. I also discarded any dried or wilted flowers. This step was easy, took no time at all, and provided beautiful visuals.


 Once all the blooms had been separated, I then evenly placed them on top of the fat until there was about two inches of them in height. I took another glass casserole dish that fit uniformly into my first one and pressed it on top of the flowers and the fat. While pressing down, I sealed both dishes together with electrical tape, making sure that I left no gaps for the scent to escape. I left this in a cool, dark area for 48 hours. 

 After 48 hours I removed the old blooms, collected more lilacs and repeated this part of the process again. If this weren't a project that I undertook on a whim, I would have repeated this step another 2-3 times, but I started late in the season and the lilacs were already on their way out. The more times that you refresh the blooms the stronger the scent will be."


The scented fat can be used as is, which is known as a pomade. Or you can process it further to extract the scent, as thus:

"When I unsealed the two glass containers after another 48 hours, I removed all the spent blooms and started chopping up the fragrant fat. Using a bamboo skewer, I pushed the fat into bottles with wire-and-ball stoppers, about halfway up each vessel. I poured 70% rubbing alcohol in the bottles all the way to the brim. I quickly sealed them, and wrapped electrical tape around the top for added measure.


 I then placed them in my cool basement, away from light. They will sit there for 3 months as the alcohol takes on the fragrance of the fat. When they are ready to be opened, I will then strain out the fat and add a fixative, such as cedarwood oil, to stabilize and keep the scent from evaporating. At that point, I can re-bottle it for personal use. Waiting without opening the bottles for a preview whiff will be the hardest part."

I learned that this is one way of making an absolute, one of the priciest types of scent essentials. As a further step, the alcohol would be either evaporated or frozen, and the raw, pure droplets of essential oil stuff separated out. Tedious! Hence, the price tag of Rose or Jasmine at $30 a bottle, on the cheap end. Many pounds of floral material may result in only a tiny amount of scented extract!


A final word from Hollie:

"Enfleurage is not a quick process, but it's also not difficult. I always find the most intimidating part of taking on DIY projects is actually getting up the nerve to start, and this one was no different. You can use this method with many different flowers, and I am looking forward to further experimentation, as well as seeing how my first batch turns out! I love the idea of being able to smell fresh lilacs that I cut myself year round."

Thank you, Hollie, for this helpful information!


This year, I didn't get a wild hair up in to try this when it counted, and our neighborhood Lilacs are long since officially toast; but I thought perhaps I could try it with our Jasmine vine. I didn't have lard, but I did have some coconut oil in a jar. I reasoned that if I started small anyway, I wouldn't waste a lot of resources if something went amiss. So I gathered some Jasmine blooms and went about sorting them, placing them one by one in a layer of coconut oil. . . .


These really are beautiful little flowers, incredibly fragrant, which unfurl in a particular pattern. They wilt almost as soon as you look at them, unfortunately --- one of the challenges of working with them! They're also sticky.


My setup isn't too good, just a couple of glass bowls. And the coconut oil is almost too gooey, especially with our thermometer climbing to the high 90s lately. It really is tedious work; thankfully this test batch is small.

A final word, too, on the coconut oil: It smells! It smells coconutty, that is, besides its awkward texture. I may have to give up and go with lard, for both solidity and lack of extra scent. With a more robust or acrid herb, like Perovskia, I don't think I'll mind, but Jasmine has a delicate, exquisite scent. One I want free of Waikiki overtones, as it were.


Above: Pressed flowers in an oily salad-bowl sandwich.



Update, July 17th:

Experiment scrapped. Stock of spent removed flowers began to mold, and a dead moth fell into the enfleurage (pressing) chamber

¿What could be done better?

• Forget being a veg-head and use lard. See if both the smell (or lack of) and melting point are more amenable to success.
• Get a better glass layering ensemble.
• Seal the glass assembly. Tape may work. Not only will it keep scent in, it will keep bugs out!
• Try using more flowers, and more iterations of them. If you can get enough.
• No matter how tedious if gets, be grateful it's not disembowling horned toads and Snape isn't there breathing down your neck after drinking three cups of black coffee. It could always be worse.




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