The lilacs have been blooming for over a week now and the scent as I walk out my back door is intoxicating. I love lilacs. As a child we had one next to the patio that I used to play around and had my kindergarten graduation picture taken next to it.
It seems a mystery why the scent of lilacs cannot be captured by distillation. When I distilled lilac the aroma was quite similar to my son's dirty socks; not something I'd like to elaborate on. I know the scent molecules are there since they enter my nose. I guess the boiling point of those molecules is just not compatible with the distillation process. I've been extracting lilacs in alcohol, but so far only have an alcohol scent. Perhaps a good way to do it is similar to enfleurage, or an oil extract. Maybe I still have time to try this before their blossoms fade.
I recently did a guest blog at Etsy Green and Clean as part of a series on herbs in skin care. You can read it here:
http://egcgswag.blogspot.com/2009/05/using-herbs-botanicals-in-skin-care-by.html
I have been participating in the Longmont Farmers Market and will continue to do so relatively regularly for the rest of the summer. Markets are Saturday morning from 8-2 at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. If you live near or are planning a Colorado vacation this summer stop by and say hi and try a tester of my new parsley eye serum!
2 comments:
We too tried to distill lilac. Tried fresh, twice, dried, once, frozen, dried in salt and extracted from salt....no once did we have anything but the dirty socks. It was a nasty, nasty mess. Do you have any ideas how to extract the scent?
A Wild Crops Farm
The only suggestion I have is to extract in fat of some sort. I am trying that now in palm oil. I haven't yet had good results, but know of others who have had.
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