Category: Recipes

Recipes

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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 Mixture for Winter

I wanted to make a new fragrance by blending essential oils.  I realised that I’ve posted several “recipes” for fragrances, but I haven’t said much about how I select and blend the ingredients.  What follows is a description of how I made a fragrance called Winter.  It blends essential oils with some science, some experience, some guesswork, some inspiration, some process, and just a hint of magic.

The First Step

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

Lao Tzu (Sixth Century Before Christian Era)

There has to be a first step, something that prompts a creative process.  It could be a theme, a memory, a mood.  You might want to re-create something that you’ve encountered.  Smells are strongly connected with memories, so you may want to create something that invokes a memory.

There may be an ingredient that you want to use.  I’ve picked ingredients at random as the starting point for fragrance blends.  On other occasions I’ve picked an ingredient because it connects with a theme I’ve chosen.  I might pick an ingredient for it’s therapeutic properties.  Most often, I’ll start with an ingredient just because I like the way it smells.

Over the course of a couple of years I worked up blends of essential oils, and sometimes other ingredients, to reflect the changing seasons.  I created eight blends and named them for the eight pagan festivals.  During the second pass through the year I created an alternate blend for Litha.  I did that because someone convinced me that Litha “Is all about the Roses”.  That left me without a name for my first Litha blend, so I called it “Summer”.  My slightly obsessive-compulsive mind was disturbed by the idea of Summer without the other three seasons, so I’ve committed myself to creating blends for Autumn, Winter and Spring.

(Those who know me are sniggering now at the idea that my mind is only slightly obsessive-compulsive.)

Inspiration

I had a theme for my new blend.  It would be Winter.

I had taken the Winter celebrations as my inspiration for a fragrance I called Yule.  That combined the traditions of “bringing in the green” with the spices used in festive fare.  I wanted to make Winter a celebration of other aspects of the season.

The Winters where I live are cold and dark and damp.  (The photo at the top of this post was taken in Alaska.)  It’s very rare that we get snow that reflects the natural light, but we do get frosts.  Sometimes standing water freezes over.  It’s a time to wrap up and go out and walk.  You can see further through the trees when the leaves have fallen.  Returning home to make things in a warm kitchen, or to curl up with a good book, adds to the joy of venturing out.

The bitter Seville oranges that are used to make marmalade start to become available in November.  They can normally still be bought in early February.  Making marmalade is one of the delights of Winter.  It calls for two sessions of activity, each about an hour long, with a couple of hours between while the prepared fruit simmers.  It’s a great social activity, because the two hours in the middle can become a long lunch while the house is filled with scent of oranges.

I had my first ingredient for Winter – Orange.

Guesswork

I already had a second ingredient because I wanted to use Wintergreen.

I didn’t want to create a fragrance in which Wintergreen dominates.  It’s a very assertive smell.  Wintergreen is the dominant smell in the Surgical Spirit sold in the US, and in many liniments and muscle rubs.  It’s medicinal, sharp and penetrating.  Any concoction that majored on Wintergreen would smell like the start of the London Marathon.  However, I had a suspicion that Wintergreen could be a dosing ingredient.

There are some perfume ingredients that smell vile if you encounter them in isolation.  Often they include indole, which is a chemical commonly associated with fecal matter.  Civet is one such ingredient. Ambergris is another. Their value in perfumery is that they work a kind of magic when very tiny amounts are added to a blend of other fragrances. These ingredients are sometimes called fixatives. The process of adding one of these ingredients is called dosing.

Process

Now that I had selected two ingredients, I needed to determine the proportions in which to use them.  There are a couple of ways to work this out.

The first way is to use perfume test strips.  These are strips of absorbent paper that are typically around 150mm long and slightly less than 10mm wide.  The process starts with writing the name of a different ingredient on each of two test strips.  It’s a good idea to add the time of day as well as the ingredient name.  Then add a single drop of each ingredient to its named tester strip.  If you bend the scented end of the test strip upwards slightly, you can put the strip down without the scented end touching anything.

Hold the test strips so the fragranced ends are close together, but fanned out slightly so they don’t touch.  Wave the test strips around for a moment, then bring them close to your nose and smell them.

If one of the ingredients overpowers the other, make up another strip with the ingredient you want to increase.  Add that to the fan of test strips, and smell them again.  Adjust the number of strips of each ingredient until you are happy with the balance.

There is a time dimension to perfumes.  If you leave the scented test strips for a while and then return to them, you may find the balance has changed.  Then you have to decide whether you want your blend to be balanced at the first encounter, or to mature into a balance later.

Another process

I like using test strips for sampling perfumes, but I don’t use them for working out the proportions of ingredients when I’m blending essential oils.  It can be difficult to put consistent quantities on test strips, and (in my opinion) they don’t always represent the way ingredients will interact.  My favoured approach is to mix up small samples of ingredients in different proportions.

I started mixing samples in test-tubes.  It resonated with studying in chemistry laboratories, and with the mad scientist ethos.  Test-tubes have their own challenges.  You can’t put them down unless you put them in a rack or put a stopper in them. Glass test-tubes are expensive. Laboratory grade plastic test tubes don’t react well with neat essential oils. If you have any doubts about whether you should ingest undiluted essential oils or apply them to your skin, take a look at what they did to a plastic test tube:

I use glass vials now. They are relatively inexpensive, and as stable as essential oil bottles.

As the starting point for working out proportions, I label 5 vials with the proportions I’ll put in them. Using Orange and Wintergreen as an example, I mix up the oils as follows:

1 drop Wintergreen, 5 drops Orange
2 drops Wintergreen, 4 drops Orange
3 drops Wintergreen, 3 drops Orange
4 drops Wintergreen, 2 drops Orange
5 drops Wintergreen, 1 drop Orange.

You can smell each of the mixtures to see which you think is balanced.  It sometimes helps to add a little perfumer’s alcohol to each vial, screw down the cap and shake the vial to mix the oils and alcohol.  Dipping the end of a test strip into a vial is a good way to sample the mixtures.  It’s best to wave the test strip around for a moment to reduce the alcohol fumes before you smell it.

It’s quite possible that one ingredient still overpowers the other in a 1-to-5 mixture.  In that case you might want to mix up some more samples with proportions of, say, 1 to 10, 1 to 15 and 1 to 20.

I was reasonably content with a mixture of 1 Wintergreen to 12 Orange at this stage.

Experience and more Guesswork

In Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume, his character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille blends 12 ingredients as the basis of his perfume. Then he doses the mixture with a thirteenth ingredient. Although the total number of ingredients is not a hard and fast rule, professional perfumers will typically blend about a dozen ingredients.  I’m not a professional.  My blends typically contain 5 – 8 ingredients.

I could systematically work out the proportions of 2 ingredients, then having fixed the proportions the first two I could repeat the process to determine the amount of a third ingredients to add to them.  Then I could fix the proportions of the three ingredients and work out how much of a fourth to add.

Life is too short.  I’m sure some apprentice perfumers go through the extended process to work out a blend.  I’m equally sure that most perfumers, professional or amateur, cut some corners based on experience and guesswork, and then make some final adjustments to their blend.

THE PLAN COMES TOGETHER

I liked the combination of Orange with a small quantity of Wintergreen. But both Orange and Wintergreen are Head notes. They are volatile, fading rapidly. A more balanced blend needs some ingredients that are more persistent, that will linger when the Head notes fade and disappear.

Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

Returning to my chosen theme of Winter, I wanted my blend to be comforting.  I wanted it to bring to mind dark evenings curled up somewhere warm with hands wrapped around a mug containing a favourite hot drink.  There is an essential oil of Coffee, which is a Heart note and smells much as you would expect concentrated coffee to smell.  To add a Base note that would contribute sweetness to the blend, I chose Oakmoss Resin.

My Winter fragrance was coming together. After mixing up a few test samples, the blend comprised:

12 Orange
1 Wintergreen
4 Coffee
6 Oakmoss.

There’s still something missing. It’s time to take a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Arsed Guess) and try something completely random. I add a drop of Camphor …

Camphor is another of those very difficult ingredients, a little like Wintergreen. It’s rarely used in perfumery, like Wintergreen. It just might work …

With the addition of Camphor, I’m almost content with my blend. I eventually conclude that the Wintergreen is just a little too dominant.  I cut the proportion by half (and because there’s only one drop in the original blend, that means doubling the quantity of all the other ingredients).

Wrapping up

Now I can write up the final recipe and rinse out my trial mixture vials into my latest bottle of Frogs Breath.

I can’t use my blend as a perfume until I have diluted the essential oils with a carrier.  In this case I plan to use perfumer’s alcohol and make a perfume at Eau de Cologne strength (1-5% essential oils in perfumer’s alcohol).  I can make an Eau de Cologne at just under 5% by using one measure of the blend and topping up to 50ml with alcohol.  The mixture needs to be left for a few days to macerate.

The final test is to wear the blend, and try to persuade a few other volunteers to wear it too. Perfume works slightly differently (sometimes very differently) with each individual’s skin chemistry.

Perfume doesn’t have to be worn on a body.  It can be sprayed onto fabric or used as a room spray too.  I’ve recently discovered these refillable sprays.  I keep one with my mask to freshen it up between wearings.  Isn’t that a very 2020 thing to do?

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Frog’s Breath

(Insect Repellent)

Cathy Keifer/Shutterstock

One of the consequences of making cosmetics and perfumes at home is that you start to acquire a collection of bottles.  You never throw out a bottle that might be useful, or decorative.  There is a reason for you to rummage through charity shops and flea markets.  You struggle to find storage space for an ever expanding selection of oil bottles, lab reagent bottles, coloured bottles, decorated bottles, poison bottles, perfume bottles, hand-blown bottles, and bottles with no discernible purpose.

My collection contained one quite plain bottle with a label proclaiming that the content was Frog’s Breath.

It occurred to me that Frog’s Breath would be a most appropriate name for an insect repellent.  For the grammar nerds, the reasoning includes subjunctive and conditional verbs:

If a fly were to feel the breath of a frog it would want to depart in haste.

I really dislike using DEET based insect repellents.  The smell is something I really dislike, and it makes me sneeze.  I can’t enjoy eating out of doors in the presence of the smell of DEET.  I’ve found Frog’s Breath is as effective as DEET, and I can tailor the smell of Frog’s Breath to be reasonably pleasant.  I’ve successfully used Frog’s Breath to deter mosquitos, ticks, and the sand flies that are too small to see but which cause misery by attacking feet and ankles.

Making Frog’s Breath

I don’t really have a specific recipe for my Frog’s Breath.  It has just two ingredients:

Isopropyl Alcohol (70% by volume with water)
A selection of essential oils.

Most airlines will allow you to carry small quantities of liquids containing up to 70% alcohol in cabin and hold luggage.  Higher concentrations have a lower flash point, meaning they catch fire more easily, and airlines may refuse to carry them.

I aim for the essential oil content to be about 5%, so 5 ml of essential oils to 95 ml of alcohol.  Approximately 100 drops of oil is 5 ml.

Choosing Essential Oils

The choice of essential oils can be almost arbitrary, but here are a few considerations:

The mixture will be sprayed directly onto skin.  If you are aware that your skin is sensitive to any oil, avoid adding it to your insect repellent.

I don’t know of any essential oil that attracts insects.  Most are effective repellents.

Phototoxicity

Some essential oils are phototoxic.  In very simple terms that means that they have the direct opposite effect to sunscreen – they decrease the amount of time you can safely spend in the sun when applied to your skin.  The effect is minimal at low concentrations.  I’ve used small quantities of some of the potentially phototoxic oils listed below, but I’d advise you to avoid them if you have very fair or sensitive skin:

Angelica root
Bergamot
Cassia
Cumin
Ginger
Lemon
Lime
Lovage
Mandarin
Orange
Verbena.

Making Frog’s Breath is an opportunity to use up the last few drops of oil in a bottle, or to turnover stocks of oils that may be starting to deteriorate.  Here’s a list of the oils used in one batch of Frog’s Breath:

Oils that are Head Notes in perfumery are less persistent.  Try to include Heart Notes and Base Notes so that your insect repellent is effective for longer and you don’t need to re-apply it so frequently.

Patchouli is an effective insect repellent, a Base Note, and manages to harmonise the most unlikely mixtures of essential oils into something that smells better than an unplanned hodge-podge.  It’s also one of the less expensive essential oils.  I aim to include 30% to 50% patchouli in the oils in my Frog’s Breath.

I have a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol that I use to rinse droppers and pipettes that I’ve used for essential oils.  When the alcohol starts to get a bit murky and droplets of oil collect on the surface, I replace the alcohol in the bottle and keep the used alcohol for making insect repellent.

It’s very likely that some of the oils will settle on the surface of the alcohol, especially if you include heavier Base Notes like patchouli.  This isn’t a problem because you can disperse the oils through the alcohol by shaking the bottle before use.

Using Frog’s Breath

I decant my insect repellent into 50 ml bottles for use.  I put a screw top on the bottles for travelling, and carry a spray top to use when I get to my destination.

To use Frog’s Breath, first shake the bottle to disperse the oils in the alcohol.  Avoid getting it in your eyes while spraying it onto your skin or in your hair.  It should be okay to spray it onto clothing, particularly natural fibres.  Some technical fabrics may show traces of oils, so probably best to avoid spraying them unless you can test where an oil stain won’t show.

 

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Sloe Gin

It’s nearing the end of July, and already there are ripening sloes in the hedgerows.  It’s time to decant the sloe gin I made last year so I can re-use the bottles.  Last year’s makings have a deep ruby colour.

 

Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn bush prunus spinosa.  They are small, a blue shade of purple when ripe, often with a white bloom on the surface.  They are very bitter to taste, and that’s why the only common use for them is making sloe gin.

Ripe sloes on a blackthorn bush
Awe Inspiring Images/Shutterstock

Making sloe gin is not difficult.  While many recipes suggest you can make it in the Autumn and it will be ready to drink by the end of December, I prefer to leave mine to macerate for just under a year.  This year I will drink the sloe gin I made last year, and perhaps some will find its way as presents to a favoured few.  Last year I struggled to find the sloes to make a modest quantity of sloe gin, so any recipients this year will be very favoured!

My recipe is very easy to remember:

A pound of sugar, to
A pound of sloes, to
A (20 ounce UK) pint of gin.

If you are making your sloe gin in 750 ml or 700 ml bottles, that scales down for each bottle to:

200 g of sugar, to
200 g of sloes, to
250 ml of gin.

Tradition has it that the sloes are best picked after the first frost.  It is also traditional to prepare the sloes by pricking each one six times with a needle.  I feel no need to follow these traditions.  There are easier ways of doing things.

I pick the sloes when the flesh gives slightly when they are squeezed.  You could taste one, but they are seriously bitter, even when fully ripe.

I offer three ways to prepare the fruit so the skins are broken and the sugar and gin can penetrate.:

One.  Take each individual sloe and prick it with a needle (for the traditionalists).

Two.  Lay the sloes out on a tray and hit them with a clean wire brush (the sort used for cleaning barbecque grills).  Theraputic.

Three.   Freeze the sloes, thereby simulating the first frost and splitting their skin so the sugar and gin can penetrate.

After that, the preparation is very easy.  Put measured quantities of sloes, sugar and gin into glass bottles, leaving a small airspace so you can shake the bottles and agitate the contents.

Sloes plus sugar
Sloes plus sugar plus gin
Sloes plus sugar plus gin after first shaking.

Store the bottles away from direct sunlight, but not so well hidden that you forget to shake them about once a week for the first couple of months.

The next day

Give them the occasional shake until you are ready to harvest sloes the following year.  Then strain the liquid from the fruit:

I know of people who remove the stones from the fruit and use it as you might use dried fruit in cereal or a pudding.  I compost the remains because I find the task of removing the stones rather fussy, and I’m not sufficiently enthusiastic about eating the soused fruit remains.

After letting any sediment settle out, decant the liquid into bottles:

The blackthorn bushes are laden with much more fruit than last year, and the fruit is almost ripe.  It seems the hedgerows contain more fruit of many types this year.  I’m hoping for a bumper crop, for me and for the wildlife that depends upon the hedgerows.

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Insanitizer #51

As insanity spreads even faster than SARS-Cov-2 (the coronavirus responsible for the disease COVID-19), it might be fun (and maybe even useful) to unpick one of the hoarders’ favourite targets:

Hand Sanitizer

Hand sanitizer is going to be absolutely essential to our survival, right?

Well, no.  It isn’t.

When it comes to killing a virus, hand sanitizer comes second to vigorous washing with soap and water.  Sanitizers are a useful complement to soap and water when constant handwashing is impractical and the risk of infection is high (such as in a hospital).  Sanitizers are not a substitute for soap and water.  However much you may dislike soap and water, hoarding or even using hand sanitizer won’t protect you or those with whom you come into contact. Wash your hands.

But hand sanitizer is effective, right?

That rather depends.

I tried to find standards and regulations that would apply to a product labelled “Hand Sanitizer” and sold as such.  I didn’t find regulation that requires Hand Sanitizer to have any effect whatsoever on any virus, bacterium or other germ.  I can piss in a bottle and sell it as Hand Sanitizer (if you want to try this you might want to consult a lawyer in case I’ve missed something).  But as far as I can see, provided my snake oil contains no known allergens, I am free to sell it and I don’t have to list the ingredients.  Ironically, if I added enough alcohol to my mixture to turn it into an effective sanitizer, then I would have to label the bottle to the effect that the contents were flammable.

If you are having difficulty believing that this product of the moment is so little regulated, I suggest you check out some of the hand sanitizers offered on Amazon (for example).  See how many even list their ingredients.

Of course some hand sanitizers are effective.  Healthcare professionals will select products that work, and some specify their own formulations.  Even home-made sanitizers can be effective.  (The ingredients for one of my versions are listed at the end of this piece.)

If it is affordable and available without prescription,  an effective sanitizer will contain alcohol.  (So all the “no alcohol” or “0% alcohol” sanitizers meet their claim that they won’t dry out your skin, but they won’t have much impact on a coronavirus.  They might give some protection against secondary infections.)

The World Health Organization has published recipes for liquid handrubs.   In both recipes the main ingredient (75% or more) is alcohol.  This may be ethanol or isopropanol (which I discussed in A is for Alcohol).  Only two other ingredients are used.  Hydrogen peroxide is used as an antimicrobial agent, and a small quantity of glycerol is added as a wetting agent.

There appears to be a consensus that an effective hand sanitizer should contain a minimum of 60% alcohol and a maximum of around 95%.  There should be some water in the formulation.  The water helps the alcohol to penetrate the outer layer of a virus.  Once the outer layer has been penetrated, the alcohol disrupts and destroys what is left.  One study tested the efficacy of a number of hand sanitizer formulations with alcohol ranging from 60% to 95%.  It identified two formulations containing 70% as the most effective amongst those tested (so increasing the alcohol content above 70% doesn’t guarantee a more effective sanitizer).

Home-made hand sanitizers can be effective if they contain a high enough concentration of alcohol.  Most forms of liquor don’t contain enough alcohol.  Spirits at 80º proof only contain 40% ethanol, far short of the minimum 60% required.  Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol attracts less tax in most countries, so it’s cheaper.  As I write all the useful sized bottles are disappearing from Amazon listings, but there are other suppliers, including on eBay, who still offer to supply.

One of the 2 widely available offerings of isopropyl alcohol contains 70% alcohol (with the balance being water).  This is an effective sanitizer in its own right, but it has 2 drawbacks:

    1. It evaporates rapidly, so it can be difficult to spread it to all parts of your hands before it has disappeared.
    2. It dries out skin, so it’s not very pleasant to use repeatedly.

Both these can be addressed, but that means adding ingredients and this will reduce the proportion of alcohol in the mixture.   There’s a useful calculator published on Lab Muffin’s blog that shows how much alcohol you need in your mixture to achieve a particular proportion of alcohol overall.

Home-made hand sanitizer

This version has a concentration of 62% isopropyl alcohol.

I include glycerine (glycerol) in my sanitizer as a wetting agent.  I also include aloe vera.  Both ingredients help spread the liquid over your hands and slow down evaporation.  They also help prevent skin drying out, so they make the sanitizer more pleasant to use than just alcohol and water.

The World Health Organization includes hydrogen peroxide.  I don’t include it in this recipe because I believe its purpose is deal with possible contaminants in water used to dilute the alcohol.  I have the luxury of access to distilled water and uncontaminated ingredients.

The final ingredient I add is peppermint essential oil.  It goes some way to masking the smell of raw alcohol and contributes to making the sanitizer a little more pleasant in use.

So here’s the recipe for Insanitizer #51:

    • 100 ml isopropyl alcohol 70%
    • 8 ml aloe vera gel
    • 4 ml vegetable glycerine
    • 0.5 ml (or 20 drops) peppermint (piperata) essential oil.

Put the ingredients in a bottle and shake to disperse the aloe gel and the essential oil.  Let it stand for a while, and then shake it up again.

The mixture is flammable, toxic if ingested, and you should avoid getting it in your eyes.

Be well.  Be safe.

 

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Ostara Handcreme #14

“In Spring the young man’s fancy turns to what women have been thinking about all Winter.”
with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson

We see the first glimpses of Spring at the start of February (in my part of the United Kingdom).  By the time the Spring (Or Vernal) Equinox arrives , Spring has definitely sprung.  This year, the Spring Equinox will fall in the early hours of Friday 20 March.  The days lengthen more rapidly at the Spring Equinox than at any other time of the year.  From the Spring Equinox until the Autumn Equinox we will have more hours of daylight than darkness.

This is ostensibly a post about a hand cream for the Spring Equinox.  The hand cream recipe is the same as the recipe for #14 Handcream and the blend of oils used to fragrance this version is Ostara.   So having fulfilled the promise of this post’s title, let’s follow the Easter Bunny down her rabbit-hole and decorate some eggs.

Down the rabbit hole

The last time I decorated eggs by dying them with onion skins was in Edinburgh in 1980.  I thought I’d better test out what I remembered of the process before posting anything about it, so last weekend I bought half a dozen eggs with light coloured shells, and gathered together some onion skins, some newspaper, some string, and some flower petals.  My collection of flowers included crocus, forsythia, primrose, periwinkle, hornbeam and celandine.

The idea is to stick the petals to the surface of an egg, then wrap the decorated egg with onion skin.

The onion skin-wrapped egg is then wrapped in newspaper to hold the petals and the onion skin in place, and tied into a bundle with string.  The bundles are put in a pan, brought to the boil, and boiled for just a little longer than it would normally take for hard-boiled eggs (maybe 5 minutes).  It can be helpful to weight down the bundles so they don’t float in the pan.

And that’s it.  When the wrapped eggs have cooled down enough to handle, you can unwrap the dyed eggs.  The overall effect is marbled, with the onion skin dye masked where the flower petals have been.

It’s still a little too early for me to find flowers in the garden that will colour the eggs rather than just mask the onion skin dye.  Colours rarely come true with this type of dyeing, but I do remember some of the coloured primulas add shades of red and pink to the overall effect.

Forty years ago:

I managed to find the photos I took the first time I dyed eggs in this way.  Here they are, from prints on Kadachrome paper and collected in an album:

 

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Imbolc Handcreme #14

Snowdrops
Snowdrops

This is my goto recipe for a handcreme (“Handcreme #14”).  I produce it with different blends of essential oils to reflect the seasons.  This version celebrates the land waking up at the end of Winter.  I’ve called it Imbolc.

Imbolc falls around the 1st of February in the Northern Hemisphere.  It celebrates the first stirrings of Spring as the days become perceptably longer.

Although I normally describe this as a handcreme, its use isn’t limited to hands.  It’s a classic cold cream that is suitable for hands, face or any other skin that may be prone to dryness.   Rosemary Gladstar gives the proportions of ingredients in a cold cream in her book Herbal Healing for Women.  She called her version her Famous Face Cream:

“The basic proportions of this cream recipe should be about one part group 1 (oil phase) to one part group 2 (water phase).

“In group 1, the oil proportions should be approximately 2 parts liquid oils (such as grapeseed, almond, apricot) to 1 part solid oil (cocoa butter, beeswax, lanolin).”

My Heavy Duty Handcreme #21 is another example of a cold cream.

The ingredients, equipment and method I use to make Handcreme #14 are:

Oil Phase
  • 150ml  Sweet Almond Oil
  • 75ml  Coconut Oil
  • 30g  Beeswax
  • 20g  Shea Butter
  • 7.5ml  Lanolin
Water Phase
  • 150ml  Distilled Witch Hazel
  • 75ml  Aloe Vera Gel
Cool Down
  • 7.5m  Vitamin E oil
  • 20-30 drops of essential oils (see later in this post for the Imbolc blend).
Equipment
  • Two heaproof glass containers, one with a capacity of al least 500ml and the second with a capacity of at least 250ml.  (I use Pyrex jugs.  Mason Jars are also suitable.)
  • An electric oven capable of being set to a temperature of 60-70C, or a shallow pan wide enough to accept the glass containers and a kitchen stove electric hob or gas ring
  • A hand blender or whisk
  • Clean jars for the handcreme
  • Spatula(s)
  • Cloths or paper towels for cleanup.
Method
  1. Measure out your oil phase ingredients into the largest of your two glass containers, and measure out the water phase ingredients into the other glass container.  Put a stirrer into the container with the oils – a spatula or spoon.
  2. Heat the ingredients until all the solid oils and waxes melt.  Either;
    • Put the containers into an electric oven set to about 70C, or;
    • Put the containers in a shallow pan and surround them with water.  Bring the water to the boil on a stove top and reduce the heat so the water simmers gently.
  3. Prepare your containers.
  4. When the solid oils and waxes have melted, take the containers out of the oven or off the stove.  Stir the oils (remembering that the stirrer will be quite hot).
  5. Put your blender or whisk into a pot of hot water to preheat it.
  6. When you start to see the oils solidifying, put your blender or whisk in the container with them.  Whisk or blend as you add the water phase ingredients, keeping use of the whisk or blender to a minimum.
  7. Briefly whisk or blend as the mixture cools.  When it gets to around 40C (when the container will still be warm to touch but not too hot to hold comfortably) add the cool-down ingredients and whisk or blend briefly for the final time.
  8. Pour and scrape your cream into your containers.
  9. Label the containers and keep them in a refrigerator until you want to use your handcreme.
  10. Clean up with hot, soapy water.
Handcreme in containers, labelled and with information slips
Imbolc Handcreme #14

I’ve used Handcreme #14 as the basis of a number of seasonal cosmetics.  In December I added my Yule blend of oils.

For the Imbolc version I started with an Imbolc blend proposed by Amy Blackthorn.  (The blend is published in Amy’s book Blackthorn’s Botanical Magic.)  Amy’s blend has  a base/heart note of Angelica Root, with  heart notes of Basil and head notes of Laurel.  I modified Amy’s blend by adding Tobacco Absolute, Violet Leaf Absolute and a goodly dose of Fir Needle.  I aimed to develop a fragrance with green notes throughout.  I’m quite happy with the results – I developed this blend in 2019 and re-used it this year without modification.

Head notes
  • 16 drops Fir Needle Essential Oil
  • 8 drops Laurel Essential Oil
Heart notes
  • 8 drops Violet Leaf Absolute
  • 8 drops Basil Essential Oil
Bass notes
  • 8 drops Angelica Root Essential Oil
  • 4 drops Tobacco Absolute

To end on a cautionary note – neat essential oils can be highly corrosive.  With very few exceptions they should never be applied to skin unless diluted.  I first made this blend last year in a laboratory grade plastic test tube,  intending to add it to handcreme a few days later.  When I came to use it, the interior of the tube was etched and the base was crazed and cracked.  I mixed up some more in a glass container for my batch of handcreme!

Plastic test tube etched and cracked by essential oils
Cautionary tale of effects of essential oils on plastic
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Pumpable Body Lotion #46

This recipe was published as Summer Passions Pumpable Body Lotion by Barb Misiuda on her site Scrub Me Down.  I made it on New Year’s Day (in England) so it wasn’t exactly Summer.  I followed the recipe without making substitutions.  I don’t use artificial fragrances, so I used a combination of Rose and Clove Bud essential oils to produce a scent reminiscent of carnations.

The list of ingredients for this lotion is longer than that used in most of my concoctions.  It introduced me to a couple of ingredients that I hadn’t used before.

Oil Phase
  • 12 g Avocado Oil
  • 12 g Emulsifying Wax (Olive Derived)
  • 9 g   Mango Butter
  • 6 g   Sweet Almond Oil
  • 6 g   Passion Fruit Oil
  • 3 g   Beeswax
Water Phase
  • 207 ml Distilled Water
  • 30 g Aloe Vera Gel
  • 3 g Vegetable Glycerine
  • 3 g Silk Peptides
Cool Down
  • 3 g Vitamin E Oil
  • 6 g Panthenol
  • 1.5 g Plantaserve E
  • 12 drops Rose absolute (Turkish)
  • 4 drops Clove Bud Essential Oil
  • 0.1g Gold Mica
Equipment

To make this you will need:

  • 2 glass containers large enough to hold all the ingredients with a bit of room to spare.  I use half litre Pyrex jugs, but wide-mouthed jars such as Mason Jars also work well.  At least one of the containers needs to be large enough for all the ingredients and a stick blender.
  • 1 smaller glass container.  A shot glass works well for this.
  • A stick blender
  • Small spatulas (wooden coffee stirrers scrounged from coffee shops work well)
  • 1 or more pump bottles with a total capacity of slightly more than 250ml
  • A funnel
  • A kitchen hob and a shallow pan, or an oven capable of being set to a temperature of 70-80C.
Method

Measure out the oil phase ingredients into one glass container, and the water phase ingredients into another.  If you aren’t in a hurry, cover the containers and let them stand for a while.  This allows the waxes to start to soften in the oils, and allows the silk peptides and aloe gel to start to disperse in the water.

If you have access to an electric oven, set the temperature to 70-80C and put the 2 containers of ingredients in the oven.

If you are going to make this on a gas or electric ring, put the containers in the shallow pan, add some water (perhaps to a depth of 3-5 cm) and bring the water to the boil.  Turn down the heat when the water boils so the water is just simmering.

Put the cool-down ingredients in another (ideally smaller) container –

  • Panthenol is a very viscous gel that I found difficult to weigh accurately or to scrape off a spatula.  Another time I may add some to water to make a less viscous solution, keeping any excess in the fridge until the next time I need some.
  • I didn’t weigh the mica.  I would consider it an optional ingredient anyway.  I added enough to cover about 6mm of the type of stick that coffee shops provide for stirring coffee.  I might double the amount next time, but too much glitter would be, well, too much.

Emulsifying wax doesn’t seem to melt into the other oil phase ingredients.  When the other oil phase ingredients are all liquid, take the oil phase and the water phase containers to your work surface and turn off the heat.  As there’s more of the water phase ingredients to heat up, they may not be as warm as the oil phase.  That’s not a problem.

It’s a good idea to put your stick blender into a separate pot and leave it to stand in hot water to warm it up a bit.

If you have a thermometer, watch the oil phase until the temperature drops to about 42C.  If you aren’t using a thermometer you can judge the temperature by feeling the outside of the container with your hand.  When it still feels warm but you can hold it comfortably, it’s time to start mixing.

I add the water phase to the oil phase, but it’s not critical which you add to which.  I just find pouring the water phase avoids oils and waxes solidifying on the rim of a container as you pour them.  Barely touch the control button on your stick blender as you mix the 2 phases – it’s important not to over-blend this lotion.  Only blitz the mixture until it’s just mixed.

Add the cool-down phase ingredients and blitz again, very briefly.

Decant the mixture into your pump bottles.  Briefly shake them as the lotion cools completely and thickens.

I keep all my cosmetics in a fridge until they are to be used.

Reflections

I’ve wanted to make a pumpable lotion for maybe a year.  Some attempts at formulating my own recipes produced rather nice and usable lotions, but they were too thick to be used in a pump bottle.  This recipe proved highly successful, and the lotion it produced is disappearing fast in this and other households.  in short – it’s a winner.

I’m sure I won’t resist the temptation to tinker with the recipe over the coming months, but the changes won’t be substantial.  I may subsitutute oil for oil, butter for butter, and maybe hydrosol for distilled water.

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Re-imagining the Winter Solstice

My first venture into making cosmetics was around this time of year.  I spent a couple of days at a workshop offered by Rowan McOnegal.  We made a classic Cold Cream and I added what I considered seasonal essential oils to provide fragance and act as preservatives.  I called it “Yule” because it’s a short word to put on a label.  And it’s what I was trying to evoke with the aromatic oils.

Since my first attempts, my cosmetic recipes have mostly been in two parts:

  • A base of oils, often combined with with water based ingredients
  • Esssential oils to provide fragrance and prevent mould and bacterial growth.

This post briefly explores how a perfume of essential oils is constructed, ending up with a recipe for a blend intended to invoke the the spirit of Yule.

The composition of a perfume

The word “composition” is somehow appropriate for perfume.  The analogy of making music is carried into the words used to describe the process.

Essential oils used in composing perfume are divided into three categories:

  • Head (or Top) notes
  • Heart (or Middle) notes
  • Base (or Bottom) notes.

Head notes are the more volatile oils.  They are the first to catch your attention.  Their impact is immediate, but short-lived.  They are the first to fade, often within minutes.

Heart notes have more staying power than head notes.  They may linger for an hour or two.

Base notes are the least volatile, and may last a day or more.

The categorisation of oils as Head, Heart or Base is not an exact science.  Most fall clearly into one category or another, but some inevitably fall on the cusp between.

There are no hard and fast rules, but a balanced perfume normally contains Head, Heart and Base oils.

Chords

Continuing the musical analogy, a blend of notes of the same category is known as a chord.  So a perfume normally comprises:

  • A chord of Head notes
  • A chord of Heart notes
  • A chord of Base notes.

Perfumeurs often blend individual chords, and then blend the completed chords into the final perfume.  I recognize that I’m an amateur, so  I do not attempt to shortcut this process.

Patrick Süskind presents a slightly stylized version of composition in his novel Perfume.  His ideal perfume comprised 12 individual elements in 4 chords, plus a  final 13th element to complete the perfume.  Perfumeurs would recognise the addition of the 13th ingredient as dosing the blended perfume.

Dosing

In addition to the chords that are blended to produce a perfume, some perfumeurs add very small quantities of particularly assertive ingredients.  Musk, civet and ambrette have been used for dosing.  Musk is virtually unobtainable now, and along with civet raises some significant ethical issues.

Re-imagining Yule
The essence of Ule
The essence of Yule

My 2017 and 2018 Yule blends comprised:

  • A Head note of Nutmeg
  • Heart notes of Clove and Cinnamon
  • A Base note of Frankinsense.

While this produced a suitably festive perfume, I wanted to evoke a couple of the memories of distant Winter celebrations:

  • Oranges were one of my childhood associations with the Winter holidays.  Fresh oranges were not so common (it was a while ago) and mandarin oranges (satsumas) were a seasonal treat.
  • Evergreens connect the Christmas Tree tradition with the older “bringing in the green”.

As well as selecting Bitter Orange and Scotch Piner Needle to go with the oils used in earlier years, I added Corriander.  I wanted to include the seasonal references, but that doesn’t always result in a harmonious blend.  I suspected that a little Corriander would help the other ingredients rub along together.  Bitter Orange, Scotch Pine Needle and Corriander are all Head notes, so while my Heart and Base cords remained the same  my Head note chord now comprised:

  • Bitter Orange
  • Scotch Pine Needle
  • Nutmeg
  • Corriander.

I’ll discuss the process of selecting the proportions of the oils in a perfume in a future post.  In the meantime, here’s the my recipe for (this year’s ) Yule fragrance :

  • 6 Drops Bitter Orange Essential Oil
  • 2 Drops Scotch Pine Needle Essential Oil
  • 3 Drops Nutmeg Essential Oil
  • 4 Drops Coriander Essential Oil
  • 3 Drops Clove Essential Oil
  • 2 Drops Cinnamon Essential Oil
  • 9 Drops Frankinsence Essential Oil

 

 

 

 

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Rose Tinted Lip Balm #135

This lip balm is coloured, but not with the intensity of a lip gloss or lipstick.

The colour is obtained from alkanet.  You may have encountered alkanet before.  It’s what gives the distinctive red colour to a Rhogan Josh curry.  You can buy alkanet at Asian food stores or online.  The alkanet is used to colour an oil that is used in the recipe.  I use light olive oil, but any light cooking oil will work.  Gently fry a couple of tablespoons full of alkanet in about 100 ml of oil until the oil takes on the red colour.  Let it cool and strain it into a clean glass jar or bottle.  Keep it somewhere dark and cool (ideally in a refridgerator) until you want to use it.

I’ve used Castor Oil in this recipe.  It’s a very good lip conditioner, and is slightly glossy.

To complement the rose colour, I’ve added a hint of mica (glitter) powder.  Any more than just a hint might be too much.

This recipe makes about 75g of lip balm, which is a little more than 12 tubes of 5.5 g each.

Ingredients
  • 30 ml Castor Oil
  • 15 g Unrefined Cocoa Butter
  • 15 g Beeswax
  • 15 ml Olive Oil coloured with Alkanet
Additions
  • 1 ml Vitamin E Oil
  • 0.2 g Purple mica powder
  • 4 drops Rose Essential Oil
Method

Measure all the ingredients (except the additions) into the glass jug. Put the stirrer into the jug with the ingredients, and then put the jug into an oven at 70-75C, or heat it in a bain marie.

While the ingredients are warming up and melting, prepare your tubes or tins.

When the ingredients are all liquid, remove them from the oven. Add the Vitamin E Oil, mica and the Essential Oil. Stir. Pour into the tubes or tins.

Keep your lip balm in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Product Information

I don’t sell my cosmetics, so I am not obliged to provide detailed product information.  However, I do provide a double-sided slip of paper that describes the product and its ingredients:

… and on the reverse: