What the heck do I have here?
I usually use "trinkalcohol" or "feinsprit" (ethanol) for my perfumes. But when I went yesterday to buy "trinkalcohol" from the pharmacy the apothekerin recommended "Aro-alcohol" to me.
The bottle says "Feinsprit vebilligt ARO" or something like that. She said that it was cheaper than the trinkalcohol and could be used for perfumemaking. I tried asking her exactly what this was (the conversation was in German). She told me that *this* was ethanol. I asked the INCI name and she said that there wasn't one, that it was just "ethanol."
I'm confused because the bottle said "verbilligt," which I think means "cut" or "diluted." So what is this cut with?
I posed the question to the man whose life I want to live, Andy Tauer of Tauer Perfumes. He recommended that I just get my alcohol from the alcohol board here, which I will most likely do.
But until then, would anyone know what this "Aro-alcohol" is? Is it perfumer's alcohol?
Even though I haven't posted in a while, I've still been dilly-dallying in making stuff.
Last night I brewed up a big, fat, funky fail.
I'm still working on my cream and getting all the ingredients to play together. But one thing bugged me: There seemed to be a lingering odor of hmmm.. a "human waste-type something" smell.
Last night I made the cream again, but I wanted it a little more fluid so I upped the amount of Rosenblütenwasser (rosewater), emptying the bottle. I mixed it with the emulsifying wax and oils and stirred. That fecal scent became more pronounced. I poured the mixture in a jar, put it in the fridge, then went to bed. Note: I left the empty rosewater bottle on the kitchen cabinet.
When I got up this morning, the scent was really strong. I tracked it down and it was coming from the bottle. Roses have a hint of a fecal smell anyway, at least to me, but in this particular instance it was really, really strong.
I know that certain flowers have that type of scent due to indole, but this just took the cake.
Is it me? Or, is it that the blossoms used for the rosewater just happened to be really, uh, "ripe"?
Image: fabdebaz/flickr
