Week 2
A brief clarification and indeed apology is needed before I kick on with this weeks instalment, it is a quite important point in that if you are making an aftershave splash, most people will add Witch hazel or another liquid containing water or even glycerine. I am very new to this and quite frankly made a very silly assumption due to my ignorance.
I know a fair few people in the US, and it so happens one of them so happens to be an artisan producer, so I have been corresponding with him and he has been kind enough to lend some ongoing assistance to my non commercial, bit of fun home made ripper Aussie splash project.
Anyway, the error I made is a rookie error and is part of the learning curve, there is a very simple rule:
If you are going to mix essential oils with water in any shape or form you need Polysorbate 20 or another surfactant or emulsifier. Most Aftershave splashes have alcohol, perfume/essential oil, Witch hazel and glycerine and therefore contain an emulsifier even if they do not state it on the bottle. I have this on very good advice and have confirmed it through a lot of reading and thinking about the bloody obvious: oil and water do not mix.
Polysorbate 20 - The Pork Chops Friend
What a bloody pork chop I was, posting pictures of the product last week and telling everyone it wasn't needed in splashes.
If you do not use an emulsifier then you can only use pure alcohol and essential oils for your splash which quite frankly is way to harsh and raw for my skin. If you
do decide not to use Polysorbate 20 or another such product and you add a percentage of Witch hazel (typically constituted from 14% alcohol, water, and the active ingredient itself) then your oils will fall out of solution and will either float to the top of the bottle or to the bottom and you won't have an aftershave, you will have fractions of alcohol, oils, and Witch hazel that is a cloudy, unappealing mess that will end up with precipitates and all kinds of funky junk in the solution.
So this stuff is cheap, I think I paid $8 or so (maybe $10) for 250 ml which is plenty as you use it in the same quantities (roughly) as your essential oils. It's a thick, clear glucose like liquid and I do not recommend trying to suck it up with a pipette - rather use a large gauge syringe (obviously without the sharp) or, as I have use a small glass or plastic medicine beaker with 2 or 5ml increments. As most Aftershave splashes contain 3ml to 5ml of essential oil per 100ml of total volume, you don't need much. Another good thing with it is, it can be added at the end of the process to clear up the solution if there are still oils that will not emulsify - a few judicious drops in the finished splash until everything is clear and no oil droplets are visible - a good tip and worth remembering.
As I am going to use Polysorbate-20 all my measurements will be based on this product, there are other products out there that do the same thing, but all my research indicates Poly20 is the one to use. As an aside, Polysorbate 80 is for greater quantities of oils and is too aggressive for aftershave and the kinds of delicate and expensive oils I will be using.
The general rule of thumb: you need an equal part Polysorbate 20 to essential oil. I do say general as some of the thicker absolutes and essential oils will require a little more polysorbate to clear the splash solution I am reliably informed. For most people this will be say
5ml of essential oil and 5 or 6 ml of Polysorbate 20 per 100ml splash bottle.
The Ratios of the Splash
So here is where I will be discussing the percentages of various liquids that I will be putting into my splash, I am not talking about the Essential Oils here but rather the Perfumers Alcohol, Witch hazel and the Glycerine. I have made up about 15 or 20 combinations or more accurately ratios so I thought I would share my general thoughts now so if people want to replicate what I have done, they have something to work with.
I will stick to the 100ml total solution volume as it's simple, scales well and keeps it easily understood. If you want to make less you need to obviously scale it down, I won't be discussing all the math of the situation - you can do some reading about dilution - there is plenty of information on google in this regard along with calculators for volume, etc.
Perfumers Alcohol - A range of 45% to 75% (45ml to 75ml)
Witch hazel - A range of 10% to 40% (10ml to 40ml) NB: This is presuming your Witch Hazel is 14% alcohol and not the dilute cheap stuff.
Glycerine - A range of 3% to around 8% (3ml to 8ml)
A Caveat:
Be careful adding glycerine, it is very very easy to add too much and turn the solution into a sticky syrup that when it "dries down" it leaves a sticky, nasty coating on the skin. I know this from hard experience over the last week making test ratios.
I will be using the following ratio in the PC Vetiver Splash:
60ml Alcohol
25ml Witch Hazel
3ml Glycerine
6ml Polysorbate 20
6ml Essential Oil 'Base'
I am using these ratios based on my particular cosmetic supplier and the 15 or 20 test batches I have made up and trialled, people will need to adjust these ratios depending on their supplier, accuracy of measurements and so forth but they are imho a good guide. I stress here that accurate measurement is needed, get some measuring cups with decent scales and not some arbitrary cooking measuring cups. Too much or too little plays a really big part in regards to alcohol and glycerine especially.
I was going to add some alum, but quite frankly procuring it was too much of a hassle and I don't really care for the stuff myself. I may play around with adding some in the future though.
Blending Your Oils
So here we have the 9 (12 or 13 tbh ) essential oils that will make up
Un cutlette de porc which will be a classic vetiver, it's not all damp forests and cantankerous old men wielding boar brushes and telling people to get off their lawn though, there are some clean, crisp and very uplifting mid and top notes in PC which are currently being fine tuned (well, to be truthful I had 12 different formulas ageing for a week and one jumped out at me today).
I'm not disclosing my own formula for what it's worth, the fun in this whole caper is discovering it for yourself but I am more than happy to provide hints and tips being ever so much a novice myself. The one critical aspect of blending the essential oils is accuracy,
you absolutely must have accurate pipettes to measure. In the real perfume world they use scientific scales, I looked into getting a set but they are furiously expensive so I have gone with the best available and have used .ml to measure and scientific pipettes. There has to be a limit on the 'numbers' with this kind of project, dropping $450 - $700 or so on scales just does not.. add up.
Before mixing any oils be prepared!
Prior to blending any expensive oils: I have my formula typed out. I have checked my calculations twice, I have the Base Notes in order, then the mids and then the tops and I number them sequentially. I have my pipettes ready, I have my oils lined up in numerical order (base first, mids, top) and I have my sterile tinted bottle ready to receive the oils.
I have a pen and paper to hand, plenty of space. When I add an essential oil, I place a tick next to it on my formula print out and move to the next number. There can be no errors, errors ruin accords and can rarely be fixed especially with my skill level. These oils are also bloody expensive, a great impetus to not buggering it up!
I also have a small plastic basket (tip from artisan friend) - once I have added an oil I place the Essential oil bottle straight into the basket to prevent error, confusion or mucking up the formula. Adding an oil twice will ruin the accord and this system works very well.
So, I am ready to shoot. All planned out, all eager to start dripping oils into bottles using plastic pipettes in the 'lab' - my kitchen when the wife is out actually and I know I won't be bothered.
We will need a formula, or at least some kind of idea or direction. As promised (it is nothing too special) here is a basic Vetiver for anyone interested or lazy. It's not refined, not even close but it is a good, classic and solid start.
Vetiver EO 1ml
Black Pepper EO 1ml
Nutmeg EO .5ml
Ginger EO .1 ml
Bergamot EO .75ml
Lemon EO .5ml
Polysorb 20 - 4.75ml
This makes a 4.75%-5% (accounting for measurement variance) pure essential oil solution (10mls in total: 5ml of oil and 5ml of polysorb) which you bottle, leave in a dark place for a week, tweak then combine with the alcohol, witch hazel, etc.
This formula requires pure essential oils, if you use 3% blends, fragrances or chemicals then I have no idea how this will turn out - I would suspect not very well though to be honest and the measurements would be way off due to the dilute nature of non EO's.
Adding the Oils
This is fairly simple, Base Notes First, then heart of middle, then the top. (My example vetiver is ordered for a reason). Take your time, accuracy is key and rushing only leads to spillage and errors.
Once all your oils are added to your dark storage bottle, give the solution of oil a swirl and then add your polysorb-20 and seal the bottle tightly (after smelling of course). You then want to shake the bottle for around 3 to 4 minutes until your wrists hurt. Once you have done this open the bottle and take a smell - the transformation has already begun from a series of individual scents to an accord - it's only a very minute change, but it's noticeable.
Don't forget to label the bottle!. Include the volume, date, name and concentration of the formula - You don't want to go dumping dilute or overly concentrated and expensive solutions in an incorrect quantity as you haven't labelled the bloody thing!
Here is one I prepared earlier
Making a Base
I have chosen to make a 'base'- this just means that I make 12 ml of pure essential oil concentrate at a time, I do this as it's a lot easier to be accurate when measuring say 3.5 ml than say measuring .675ml if I was only making a 6ml pure essential oil concentrate. Into the blue bottle goes my pure essential oils (12mls) and 12mls of Polysorbate 20. In effect it simply means I can make 200ml of splash once it is all mixed and married.
The advice I have received from my anonymous artisan, and it's very good advice when you think about it, is that unless you have scales it is always best to make up 12ml of base solution at a time (12ml of base solution makes 200ml of splash at 6%, for a 5% solution you would make 10ml of base oil) as the quantities for just about every accord will require say 2 or 3ml of one oil, 4ml of another oil with only 2 or 3 oils requiring say .5ml or .75ml thus reducing the changes of measurement error... i.e try measuring .125ml of say a top note for your splash with a pipette - bloody impossible to do.
Ageing and Maturing the Splash
The base oil now needs to 'marry' in a cool, dark place for a week so the oils will combine and instead of being a collection of oils an accord will be formed - all going well. During the 1 week maturing process, the bottle shaken vigorously every day to ensure a consistent blend in solution. After a week of resting I will keenly open it, take half a drop and place it on a cotton wool bud to see if the accord is getting close. If I am not happy I will round it off (possibly adding more or different oils and then resting it for another week).
If I am happy then I will prepare the first batch of testers. Once I have mixed my base with the rest of my liquids the 100ml bottles will then be put back into a cool dark place for a couple of weeks if it needs more time. At this point, if I am happy with it I will send out a few 5ml testers to see what people think.
Questions, comments, criticisms, discussion are all welcome. I am a newbie to all of this and it has been a steep learning curve, the assistance I have received from across the pond has been invaluable however - without it I suspect it would have taken me months to work out a lot of the ratios so I am glad to be able to document and discuss my hobby here with you fine chaps
