Month: January 2021

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Concentration

What’s in the bottle?

Apart from a cute bottle, what do you get when you buy a bottle of fragrance?  I thought it might be useful to compare the offerings.

A carrier will make up the largest proportion of all the ingredients in a fragrance.  This benefits the seller economically because carrier will be the cheapest ingredient, but it also benefits the consumer.  The fragrant ingredients, whether natural essential oils or synthetic fragrance oils, are highly concentrated.  With very few exceptions, they should not be applied to skin unless they have been diluted in some way.

In the Western world the overwhelming proportion of fragrances are alcohol based.  Oil-based perfumes, including solid perfumes, are much more common in the Middle East.  This may have something to do with religious objections to handling alcohol, but oil-based fragrances can also be better suited to hotter, drier climates.

Alcohol-based fragrances

The alcohol that is used as a carrier for fragrances is normally ethanol.  Ethanol evaporates quickly and does not have a particularly strong odour of its own.  It does not leave a residue on fabrics.  It can be used on hair in cultures that do not normally use oil as a hair cosmetic.

There will typically be about 5 – 10% water in the alcohol base of a fragrance.  The alcohol may be denatured (cut with a very small amount of very unpalatable substances) to avoid alcohol duties.  It may also contain small quantities of other substances, for example to stabilise the mixture of alcohol and the fragrance ingredients.

Commercial fragrances should show the percentage alcohol on the packaging.  It’s normally on the back or the bottom of the box.  This is from a Penhalligon’s fragrance:

Assuming that the base alcohol used in the fragrance will contain about 5% water, in this Penhalligon’s fragrance the aromatic content is likely to be 15% or slightly less.

The definitions of the categories of alcohol-based fragrances do not appear to be regulated.  I believe these descriptions to be representative:

Eau de Cologne

Eau de Cologne is the lightest, least concentrated of alcohol-based fragrances.  It typically comprises 1% – 5% fragrant ingredients.  In this image, 2% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid (red wine):

Eau de Toilette

Eau de Toilette can contain anything from 5% – 15% fragrant ingredients, but I believe the concentration most often falls in the 4% – 8% range.  In this image, 6% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid:

Eau de Parfum

Eau de Parfum Normally contains 15% – 20% fragrant ingredients.  Here 15% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid:

Perfume

Perfume, sometimes called Perfume Extract, typically contains around 20% fragrant ingredients.  The range can vary from 15% up to 40%.

Oil based and solid perfumes

Alcohol-based fragrances make up the majority of the output of Western perfume houses.  These are the brands that dominate the ground floor of department stores and the advertising revenues of fashion magazines.  A few indie perfumers market oil-based fragrances, often alongside a range of alcohol-based offerings.  Of these, some offer the same range as either alcohol-based or oil-based.  Solid perfumes are a still smaller niche of the market.  Solid perfumes are oil-based with the addition of a little wax.

While cosmetics and perfumes are heavily regulated in the West, this is not true in the rest of the world.  In many nations there is no obligation to provide a list of ingredients, and the use of synthetic fragrances is common.  Many of these are stronger than their natural equivalents, and cheaper.

I haven’t found any oil-based equivalent to the Eau de Cologne – Eau de Toilette – Eau de Parfum – Perfume levels of concentration in alcohol-based fragrances.   So I asked four perfume companies a direct question about the proportion of aromatics and carrier oil in their products.  I have examples of the products from all four companies.  They differ greatly, but I like them all.  All four companies answered me very promptly, for which I am grateful.  There is a striking difference between the answers from the Western and Eastern traditions.  I’ll let you form your own opinions about them:

Western

The owners of two indie perfume companies in Europe answered my question:

Francesca Bianchi is based in Holland.  She stressed that her oils were intended for body and hair, containing smaller quantities of concentrates than a perfume for more topical use.  However, many people use these oils in the same way that they might use an alcohol-based perfume.  She gave the proportion of aromatics in her oils as “around 5%”.

Christina Pandolfo Is the owner of Plenilunium Botanica based in Wales, in Bridgend. (Plenilunium Botanica is a very new brand at the time of writing (Spring 2021) and Christina is still trading through the Domina Lunae Apothecary websitesite.)  Christina was concerned to stress the need to dilute essential oils because it is not safe to use them neat.  She quoted a proportion of 6-7 drops in 10ml of carrier oil, which by my reckoning works out at around 3%.

Eastern

Representatives of two companies specialising in Eastern perfume oils gave answers in stark contrast to the Western perfumers:

Luxury Scent is a company based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the Northeast of England.  The company markets imported perfume oils.  Their response to my question was:

“20/30% is the lowest essence in our oils, most of them are higher than that and some of them absolutely essence.”

Aromatan Cosmetics is based in India, in Mumbai.  It is the office of a perfumery in the Arabic tradition called Dukhni.  Taha Nabee responded from their Customer Service:

“Typically the dilution % ranges between 20‐40% of pure concentrates”.

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Hungary Water

The first Hungary Water that I encountered was produced by Crabtree and Evelyn.  It was launched in 1975.

Basenotes describes the 1975 Crabtree and Evelyn version as “a masculine fragrance with notes of Rosemary, Mint, Lemon and Orange Peel”.  This version is long discontinued.  Occasionally a bottle appears for sale, offered at a price in excess of GBP 200.

Crabtree and Evelyn launched another version of Hungary Water in 2013.  It is described by Fragrantica as an “Aromatic Spicy fragrance for women and men”.  It included notes of Bergamot, Spearmint, Pink pepper, Rosemary, Cypress, Geranium, Amber, Musk and Sandalwood.  This too is discontinued.

A version of the legend

Rosemary Gladstar’s book called Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health was published in 2001.  It includes a recipe for “The Queen of Hungary’s Water”.  (I’ve always thought that name was rather unfortunate, and prefer the alternate “Hungary Water”.)  Anyway, this is how the book introduces the recipe:

“This wonderful astringent lotion has been hailed as the first herbal product ever produced and marketed.  Legend has it that the early Gypsies formulated it and claimed it to be a cure-all.”

My BS detector is starting to register.

Rosemary Gladstar’s recipe for Hungary Water pops up all over the internet.  Some claim very ancient origins for the recipe.  A few quote it as being the original recipe.  Some quote the story that Hungary Water was so effective at preserving the queen’s complexion at age 70 that the 25-year-old Duke of Lithuania asked for her hand in marriage.  (Of course the Duke was only attracted by the Queen’s complexion!)

A few of the descriptions of Hungary Water describe it as the first distilled perfume, but all the recipes I’ve found (with just one exception) are based on steeping herbs in either vinegar or alcohol.

Rosemary Gladstar’s recipe comprises:

6 parts lemon balm
4 parts chamomile
4 parts roses
3 parts calendula
3 parts comfrey leaf
1 part each of lemon peel, rosemary and sage
Apple or white wine vinegar (to steep the herbs)
Rose water or witch hazel (added to the strained vinegar)
Optionally, a few drops of rose or lavender essential oil.

I’m sure that recipe produces a very acceptable skin toner.  I’m less sure that there is anything ancient or authentic about it.

Searching for Authenticity

For something ancient and authentic I turned to my copy of Salley Pointer’s Artifice of Beauty.  Salley is an historian.  When archaeologists turn up a container of something that might have been a cosmetic preparation, they turn to Salley for scholarly insights to their find.  This is how she introduces Hungary Water:

“Perfumes underwent a dramatic change during the medieval period, after thousands of years of oil- or fat-based preparations.  Credited with being the first ‘modern’ perfume (although almost certainly the Arab world was the originator of the first alcoholic extracts of plant aromatics), Hungary Water is alleged to have appeared first in the mid-fourteenth century and is an alcoholic distillation composed mostly of rosemary, with possible additions of aromatic herbs, barks or resins depending on which later text is consulted.”

Salley’s book also includes a longer feature on Hungary Water.  I’ve put it in a separate page to keep the length of this post manageable.

I thought it would be interesting to re-create a version of distilled Hungary Water.

Mindful of Salley’s caution that: “In many countries there are restrictions on distilling alcoholic perfumes at home”, I wrote to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in April 2020 with a draft application for a licence to distil.  They replied the following September.  I answered their questions within a couple of days, and I’ve heard nothing since.

Distillation

Distillation works by boiling a mixture of liquids and condensing the vapours.  Ethanol boils at a lower temperature than water, and the first vapours to boil off a mixture of ethanol and water contain a higher proportion of ethanol than the liquid.  So the condensed vapours (the distillate) contain a higher concentration of ethanol than the original liquid.  Ethanol cannot be completely separated from water by distillation, but a concentration of about 96% can be achieved by successive distillations.

My still has a capacity of 2 litres.  It was manufactured in Portugal and is made of copper.  This design is called an alembic still, meaning that the vapours pass from the top of the still through a downward facing tube where they begin to condense.  It’s a miniature of version of the pot-stills used to distil alcoholic beverages such as whisky or cognac.  A pot still is less efficient than a column still.  Column stills are used in petrochemical refineries.  They are also commonly used for producing vodka.

Production

I collected stems of rosemary, with leaves and flowers, in late summer.  I filled a 1.5 litre jar with them, lightly pressed down.  Then I filled the remaining space in the jar with the cheapest UK Duty Paid brandy I could find, using a little more than one and a half bottles, and leaving a small air space so I could agitate the mixture by shaking it.

By using UK Duty Paid brandy, I am avoiding the most heinous of crimes – failing to pay taxes to HM Revenue and Customs.

In the UK there is duty payable on all alcoholic beverages containing more than 1.2% alcohol by volume (ABV).  The rate applicable to beverages exceeding 22% ABV is GBP 28.74 per litre of pure alcohol (at the time of writing).  That works out as GBP 8.05 on a 700ml bottle of brandy at 40% ABV.  VAT at 20% is applied to the duty-paid price, so the total alcohol tax collected on each of my bottles of brandy was  GBP 9.66.

Between Christmas and New Year, I poured the liquid from the jar into the pot of my still.  I filled the still column with as much of the rosemary as would fit without compressing it.  I set up the still and collected the first 600ml of distillate.  This is my version of Hungary Water.  It’s a clear liquid with the sharp, clean smell of rosemary.

Measuring the alcohol content

Given that my feedstock was brandy at 40% ABV, diluted very slightly with liquid drawn out of the rosemary leaves and stems, I had expected my distillate would be perhaps 50% ABV.  I could have refined my guess by looking up distillation curves for ethanol and water, but I didn’t need to.  It’s possible to buy inexpensive laboratory equipment that will give useful, if not highly accurate measurements.

This device is called a refractometer, and measures the proportion of ethanol in an ethanol/water mixture.  When I checked my Hungary Water with the refractometer, the reading was off the scale!  (The scale goes up to 80% ABV.)

My Hungary Water could be used as a light cologne, or a skin cleanser, or a linen spray.  It could be cut with a hydrosol to make a more gentle astringent – obvious choices would be rose or lavender.  I’m tempted to put some in a pocket atomiser to refresh my mask after use.

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A Mermaid’s Tale

On England’s South coast, near Gosport in Hampshire, there is a rather ugly 10-storey tower block.  On the tenth floor there is a circular swimming pool that is 7 metres in diameter.  Fewer than a dozen swimmers are in the water.  They stop and look downwards through their goggles as one of their number swims to the surface.  As he swims upwards the water is filled with whale-song.

Emma Farrell, Submarine Escape Training Tank, Gosport UK. Image by Fred Buyle.

It’s December 2005.  The tower block is in HMS Dolphin, a British Navy establishment.  The “swimming pool” is the Submarine Escape Training Tank (SETT).  The bottom of the SETT is at ground level, 30 metres (100 feet) below the water surface on the tenth floor.  The SETT was built as a training facility for submariners, to teach them to escape safely to the surface from a submarine disabled underwater.  The swimmers are people learning to freedive and those who are teaching them.  The whale-song is the sound of air escaping from a freediver’s ears and sinuses as he ascends from pressures of almost 4 atmospheres at the bottom of the SETT to one atmosphere at the surface.

One Breath

Freediving, sometimes called breath-hold diving or apnea, is the art of swimming underwater while holding your breath.  One Breath: A Reflection on Freediving is Emma Farrell’s story about learning to freedive, competing internationally, and teaching.

At its simplest, freediving is simply drawing a breath, holding it, and descending below the surface of water.  It is the art of the pearl-fisher, the spearfisherman, or the holiday maker who dips below the surface while snorkelling.

Yoram Zekri, Rangiroa, French Polynesia. Image by Fred Buyle

Emma’s story begins on New Year’s Eve 2000 in the Canary Islands.

“…We met an Englishman in a bar who, shouting over the music, told us he was a freediver.  I pulled him outside into the rain, my eyes shining, and grilled him until I had a list of contacts in the UK.”

I always smile when I read that.  Emma is at least six feet tall, and I have some sympathy for the English freediver.  I’m grateful to him too, that he coughed up the contacts.

One Breath records Emma’s journey from that moment in Tenerife to becoming one of the most respected freedivers in an international community.  It is beautifully written, drawing on Emma’s experience as a film writer and director.  It is also brutally honest, charting struggles and difficulties that had to be overcome along the way.

“When you surface from a good dive you want more, and the happy memories warm you like the sun.  Surface from a bad dive and it stays with you, a cold wind to chill your confidence.  This dive would now haunt me like a shadow, casting shade on my soul, until I had the strength to go back down into the darkness and banish it.”

COMPETITIVE FREEDIVING

There is a competitive side to freediving too.  The disciplines include:

Static apnea – timed holding a single breath, with face underwater.

Tanya Streeter, Static Apnea Competition, France. Image by Fred Buyle.

Dynamic apnea – swimming horizontally underwater holding a single breath.  There are speed and distance variants.

Pierre Frolla, Monaco. Image by Fred Buyle.

Depth disciplines – the depth to which a diver descends.  There are numerous versions of this discipline, from diving unassisted with constant weight to the “no limits” competition.

Pierre Frolla, 2004, 123 metre world record variable weight dive, Monaco. Image by Fred Buyle.

Freediving disciplines are described on the deeperblue website.  Current records are listed on Wikipedia.

One Breath describes competition in several disciplines.  Emma treats competitions as learning experiences.  She claims no international or national records, but she has the respect of people who have broken freediving records.  Her mastery of breathing techniques has enabled her to coach competitors in different sports towards gold medals in Olympic Games.

Understanding water

This book presents water as an environment that does not yield to force and determination.  Spending more than a few moments underwater, or descending to depths of more than a few feet, requires an understanding of the essence of water and our own physiology.  The book is an introduction to the breadth of that understanding.  It explores how our bodies can adapt to an underwater environment.  While the process of evolution optimises humans for life on land, we have a physical legacy from our aquatic past.

Teaching

We’ve reached Chapter 10 and Emma is teaching.

Emma Farrell teaching rescue procedure at the SETT. Image by Fred Buyle.

It’s as if Emma was destined to teach freediving.  At the age of 12 she was taught to breathe by a Buddhist Monk.  She is a qualified yoga instructor.  She has written and directed short films, so she understands how to present her lessons to best effect.  This can all be learned or inferred from her résumé.  The bit that’s missing from the résumé is Emma’s love of the comic and absurd.  Her infectious humour acts as a reset button when a student faces a personal impasse.  She takes her teaching very seriously.  Herself less so.

“Teaching brings me so much joy.  My own struggles can be turned into learning experiences for others and the memory of my own fears can be used to melt those of my students.”

We are back in the SETT and I’m lying on my back with my left hand resting just below my sternum, feeling my heartbeat.  The fingers of my right hand are splayed across my belly with my thumb resting in my navel.  After breathing continuously for over 50 years, I am learning how to breathe.  It’s the first of many “Ah-ha” moments on the course.  I’ve used what I learnt on that day every day since.  On a couple of occasions when allergic reactions have pushed me to the brink of anaphylactic shock, I’ve been able to hold back the panic by telling myself:
“It’s okay.  You’ve got this.  You know how to breathe.”

Overall impressions

One Breath is a beautiful book.  With just a couple of exceptions, the hundred-and-something photos were taken by Frédéric Buyle.  (The images here have been scanned from my copy of the book, and are not representative of the quality of Fred’s work.)  Fred is an underwater photographer from Belgium.  He freedives to take his photographs.  He uses minimal equipment and natural light.  Fred has held four freediving world records, and he is one of only a handful of people who have dived unaided to a depth of 100m on a single breath.

The endorsements for One Breath are impressive.

The Foreword is written by Tim Ecott.  Tim was a staff correspondent for the BBC World Service when he wrote Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World.  Neutral Buoyancy was published in 2001.

On the back-cover, Tanya Streeter describes One Breath as “Written as elegantly as Emma herself is in the water…”.  On 17 August 2002, petite Tanya Streeter claimed the overall No Limits freediving record with a dive to a depth of 160m, the deepest ever freedive at the time.  Her record has been broken several times by male freedivers, but remains the record for a female.  Tanya Streeter retired from professional freediving in 2008.

One Breath is published by Pynto, ISBN 0 9542315 2 X.  Copies are available (signed by Emma) from GO freediving.

The last word

If you are still here, would you buy Emma, or me, a coffee?

Somewhere along the way Emma and I discovered that we share a birthday.  (We were born under a water sign, of course.)  Recently we’ve given each other donations to the same cause as birthday presents.

There is a sisterhood of mermaids, and one of them needs some help.  Mermaid Reese has been battling Leukaemia for more than five years.  She’s now in her early teens.  Reese lives in the US where there is no state-sponsored healthcare.
Linden is a professional Mermaid, Auntie Mermaid to Reese.  Linden champions fundraising to provide medical care for Reese, and to support Reese’s parents who provide full-time care.