A Time Honoured Tradition
In years gone by, perfumers would either create their own ingredients or have their in-house chemists do it for them.
There were several reasons for it:
- The ingredient they sought was not commercially available
- The commercially available ingredient was not to their liking
A third reason that I have found beneficial is that commercial solvent extractions are done with solvents that generally deliver the highest yield, as such they are more chemically aggressive than alcohol.
There is always some solvent left behind which can be somewhat hazardous and can affect the odour profile.
The Method
Firstly, I combine the raw material into a specific amount of alcohol, this is the maceration stage.
After about 3-4 weeks the raw material is strained out and then filtered to remove any remaining sediment, the solution at this point is an extract.
The last stage is evaporation of the alcohol. This is done at low temperatures to avoid the loss of odour compounds from the extract.
The final stage is adding a flowing agent or plasticiser. Our process uses fractionated coconut oil.
NOTE: Commercial ingredients can contain Diethyl phthalate (DEP) or Propylene Glycol as a plasticiser.
Our Ingredients
Our handmade ingredients include:
- Vanilla Extract
- Cinnamon Absolute
- Nutmeg Absolute
- Ginger Absolute
- Coffee Extract
- Myrrh Resinoid-Absolute
- Frankincense (Hojari) Resinoid-Absolute
- Black Pepper Absolute