Hard Core Essences
In the last two years I have ordered and received any number of substances that took me by surprise by their appearance. After hemming and hawing and being put off for so long, I decided that now is the time to finally get to know some of these mysterious substances. Many essences come in an easy, liquid form. Because they are liquid you just open and pour or use a dropper or pipette to transfer them from one container to another or into a formulation.But the hard core essences require a bit more work. They come in forms that are not so easy to access. Some of the essence require that they sit in alcohol for up to six months, a year or even longer, depending on what you’re working with; in order to have a substance release its true treasure.
Take for instance mate’ from the Yerba Mate plant. This substance arrived as a hard, black, rock inside a clear jar. I looked at it, opened the jar and sniffed. The scent was faint, but beautiful and the rock seemed to look back at me as if to say, “It’s not going to be that easy to get to know me and smell my true essence”. Fine! I sat it aside for months at a time as I was focused on other formulations.But for some reason, this past week was the time that I said I must move forward and try to get to know my hard-core friends. I added some 200 proof alcohol to the mate’ and waited. Immediately, it began to change color and became a dark, mustard yellow, soft, gooey mass. I separated it from the alcohol and put it in a glass bowl, mashed and stirred it until it became a paste like consistency. And the smell! OMGoodness, it is lovely. It’s a soft tobacco, smoky like scent but it has a sweetness to it that is a bit balsamic, to me. So seductive!
There is the mimosa, which came in the form of something that looked like rock candy and smelled like it too. I place it in a jar with the right amount of alcohol. I’m looking at the bottle now and it’s date October 2010. This rock broke down into a soft, white, powder sitting at the bottom of the jar. I shake it every chance I can remember to do so. It then takes on the look of a milky water. I know it’s ready but I’ve been reticent about using it. If it’s not ready by now, I doubt that it will ever be. So I must make the plunge.
But another that I played with this weekend was the tolu balsam. It arrived in a jar. It was solid in the jar with craters in it that would remind you of pictures of the moon’s surface. I put some alcohol in the jar and after a few hours began trying to break it up with a pick like tool. It did crack up a bit, but that was as far as it seemed to be going. I then went out and purchased a brand new mortar and pestle. I separated the liquid from the solid pieces and put the solid pieces in the mortal. I gently began to grind this substance until it was a fine granules . The texture reminds me of brown sugar and smelled like that too, as tolu balsam has what I consider a ‘twist on a vanilla’ scent, about it.
I also had some ambergris that I broke down and finally used this past week. It too had been sitting in alcohol ‘cooking’ for about two years. Even though the ambergris I had was a grayish/white, hard rock looking substance, as it broke down in the jar it became a black looking lava at the bottom of the bottle and the liquid part of it looks like a sheer brownish/red color. Ambergris for those who don’t know is a by-product of the Sperm Whale – in other words, whale up-chuck. It has to sit on the ocean and become dry and hard before it becomes valuable.I’ve just decided that despite my best efforts to use some items in the form that I receive them in, their odor profiles are just too strong and the texture too viscous (difficult to measure) not to be diluted or tinctured. These include oak-moss, seaweed, fir absolute, pine needle absolute, to name a few. When I am creating a formulation even using one drop of these items will overpower the rest of the formulation when you check back weeks later to see how things are maturing.So I learned that it’s fun to play with these hard-rock and viscous essences. I am really just getting started with manipulating these precious gifts. I know I have worlds of information to gather and experiences yet to be had with them. But it gives me hope in dealing with other things in life that can be hard-core or viscous. If you work with them, give them space, try different routes and change my approach, in time, the possibilities could be endless, and fragrantly beautiful.