performance on Sat. 22 Sep.

All the experiments are meant for this:

Vooruit 25th Anniversery
date: Sat. Sep 22, 2007
place: Vooruit, Gent, Belgium

I'm participating in the group
"Heine R. Avdal"

The work "drop a line" consists of the performance and the space installation.
During the festival you can anytime visit the space.

In the space there's another space where the performance takes place.
One of the theme is about the interaction with the sense of touch.

The Witch takes care of, offcourse, the sence of smell in this happening.

The Iceland Moss extract of yesterday's smells very strong.
It's been now 24 hours, but it's still smells linear.
Good quality.

extracting the moss (10) successful!

Iceland Moss extraction
Continued from yesterday:
starting 11:00
stopping 14:00







My parner has got me a nice present: now we are recycling the water with the water pomp.

After all the extracting rotation, the alcohol(ethanol) is been separated now.
The bottom flask contains the strong, thick extract of the Iceland Moss.





It smells good and it's a strong concentration! Successful.
Since Sunday I've been extracting it for 3 days in row. No wonder it's strong...

[memo]
ethanol being used in total: 325ml (?)
Iceland Moss being used in total: 50g (?)
extracted: 25ml
leftover: 150ml





In a meanwhile I was working on washing, drying and processing the moss.




This is another sort of Iceland Moss that I've ordered from the herbal remedy shop in Germany.



Smells quite different from that of the florist quality. Somehow a bit too herbal.
Here I am experimenting with the diffusion, but no success.
It works much better with the florist quality.

extracting the moss (9) iceland moss final

9/15/2007 MEMO

Replacing the Mountain Moss in the tincture of 26/08/2007.


Iceland Moss tincture, 99.8% alcohol. (New)


9/16/2007 MEMO

Making the final extract of the Iceland Moss.
Soxhlet 150ml
Ethanol 96%





Pressing when replacing the content.


Start: 11:00
Stop: 23:00

In the meanwhile the cooling water has been used for washing the Iceland Moss just delivered.
It is processed with some kind of chemical (glycerine?), so it has to be washed.
Then take the unnecessary leaves out,
and then dry. (In case of hurry, roast it in the oven.)







When it's dry like this, crash it into powder with the blender.


17/09/2007 MEMO

Continuing the extraction from yesterday's.
starting 9:00
stopping 13:00
starting 17:00
still going on now (22:00) ...

So far I've replaced the content for 4 times.
The each content includes 10g of dried Iceland Moss.
In total +- 350 ml ethanol(96%) has been used.

The laboratory also became the playground for my son...








I got some extra flask and ethanol at the specialized shop so that I can again progress.
There was a slight heating problem, but today I have solved it.
Because that I took the smaller flask, I am using the electric kooking table for heating, not anymore the heating basket.

My kitchen / bathroom / balcony laboratory became just a mess!

moss is like seaweed...

completely dried moss (mountain moss that Saori colledted from the forest)





...and if you spray moderately warm water...
It gets back to the original shape like the dried wakame (fueru wakame)!

2 minutes later:


10 minutes later:


As they become wet again, they release the very nice forest smell.

tryout of the 'moss lotion' (2)

Today I have made it with the recipe for the body milk.
(The previous time I made it with the recipe for the creme in order to know and feel the difference.)

[base]
- Tegomuls (emulgator)2g
- almond oil 8g
- demineralized water 30g

[perfume]
- Iceland Moss extract (self made) 7ml
- pine moss extract (self made) 3ml









Very fluid texture as "body milk". Easy to spread it on the hand.

Now the problem is that the extract is too weak.
However I can see now finally the overview of where to go.
Now I am looking forward to the arrival of 2 sorts of Iceland Moss.

To Do:
15/9 Sat. Shopping (bottle, emulgator, thermometer, cup)
16/9 Sun. making the lotion for the performance on 22nd of Sep.
17/9 Mon. Iceland Moss arriving, soxhlet extracting
18/9 Tue. Iceland Moss soxhlet extracting
19/9 Wed. Iceland Moss soxhlet extracting
20/9 Thu. moving to Gent, setup, composition of the perfume ---> lotion is finalized
21/9 Fri. rehearsal, shopping(water)
22/9 Sat. premier

extracting the moss (8) distilling the iceland moss

これまでアイスランド・モスといえば、
アルコールによる抽出を試みてきましたが、
ふと普通に蒸留にかけたらどうなるんだろう・・・と思い、試してみました。

蒸留対象: アイスランド・モス約50g
　　　　（画材屋さんで買ったミニチュア模型用の着色してあるもの、洗ってから）
媒体液： 蒸留水 1000ml
火力: 2








蒸留液の匂いの特徴:
何か樹脂っぽい匂いがします。
何の匂いかは不明。
模型用やフロリスト用のものは、モスを柔らかく保っておくため、
グリセリンで処理してあるという話しもあるので、
そのせいかもしれませんが。
なにしろもともとのモスがどこか酸っぱい匂いがするのです。
考えてみれば、いい匂いが抽出できるわけがありません。
まあ一日おいてからまた嗅ぐことにします。
翌日の匂いはずいぶん違うものになるはずなので。

今２種類のアイスランド・モスをオーダーしている最中ですが、
入手しやすいフロリスト経由のものはたいてい溶剤処理されているらしく、
とても厄介です。
モスの自然な匂いがせず、酸っぱいムカつくような匂いがします。
長い年月放置しておくと、それも蒸発するようなので、
試しにオーブンで飛ばしてみたり、いろいろ試みていますが。
もとの材料の質で、抽出の質も決まってしまう部分があるので、頭痛の種です。

experiment on diffusion, in Gent

13/09/2007

I went to 'Vooruit' in Gent for rehearsing of the performance.



My experiment here is about diffusing the scent of the moss.
Diffusion with the mountain moss was not successful, but with the Iceland moss was a success.
It only needs a little bigger pan and the heater.
Off course if the natural moss that'll be placed on the floor smells well on the day of the performance, that's better. I see that my experiment is just an option. I hope that the natural one is going to smell well.



I let everybody smell the extracts that I've made.
'nice smell of forest'
'champignion-like smell'

So now my assignment is ... to concentrate the Iceland moss extract as much as possible, in other word, making it stronger and finer.

extracting the moss (7) polytrichum juniperinum

10/09/2007 memo

content: polytrichum juniperinum - Saori collected it from the forest - teabag size 2 x 1
equipment: soxhlet 150ml
medium: ethanol 96% 225ml
heating: 1〜2





result:
Difficult to adjust to the proper heating stand because the soxhlet is apparently too big for this. If it's 1 it's too weak and if it's 2 it's too strong. The bottom of the flask got burned. The character of the extract is:

- burned/baked apple
- caramel
- fish grill

Clearly it went wrong.



11/09/2007 memo

I tried again with the smaller soxhlet.


content: polytrichum juniperinum - Saori collected it from the forest - teabag size 2 x 3
equipment: soxhlet 100ml
medium: ethanol 96% 100ml
heating: 1

15:00 start
17:30 change the teabag
19:00 change the teabag
23:00 finish

collected +- 40ml

character of the extract:
- brown colord
- first seaweed / wakame / nori kind of smell that makes you think of the sea
- gradually it gets warmer, then smell of the dried leaves in the forest
- later more close to oak moss or iceland moss

Very satisfactory. The concentration is also good enough for adding it to the lotion I think.

tryout of the 'moss lotion'

I have all the materials and equipments needed to make the lotion now, so I have then made the sample of the 'moss lotion'.

memo
A-1. Tegomuls (emulgator) 2.5g
A-2. Almond Oil (oil) 6g
A-3. Cetyl Alcohol (stabilizator) 2g

B. demineralised water 30g

Warm B, and when it's about 50 degrees, warm A in the beaker.



When A and B are both around 70 degrees, pour B into A, and stir well.



While cooling, drop the conserving middle HeliozimtK, and stir well until it gets cooled down. It'll become like a whip cream.



After cooling down, add these aromaterous in 10g creme.

C-1. Mountain-moss extract 1.5ml
C-2. Iceland Moss extract 1.5ml





The Iceland moss smells stronger here. It's perhaps because of that the extract of the Iceland Moss itself is stronger than the other one.
To smell the scent I had to put my nose closer to the hand, but it stays long and it's linear.



[postscript]
My assignment is to create a lotion, but because it's still the try-out phase, the aroma extract is too weak to use for that. So I have made the harder texture(creme) first and then made it softer(lotion) with the aroma extract.

extracting the moss (6) iceland moss

content: iceland moss x 2 teabags (size1)
apparatus: soxhlet 100ml + cooler, warmthstand 1
medium: 96% ethanol 150ml
duration: 6 hours (more than 10 times reflux)

character of the extract: salty, little woody, little powdery, little honey, lenear, developes in time (base notes)


[postscript]
Iceland moss seems to be consumed as a sort of herb tea in Iceland.
Often it's used for the modelbouw (miniture).

extracting the moss (5) different mosses

On this Wednesday I went to Brussels for the meeting for the project.
It's a performance piece.
Do I perform? No, offcourse.
I'm participating it as a perfumer and not as a performer.
All the moss extraction before is for this performance.

Saori, the flower designer, gave me different sort of mosses:
those fresh ones she picked in the mountain, and those dried ones from the flower shop.







I've analyzed the each moss.
When it is dry, it doesn't smell much. However if it's wet again, it smells.
Their ecology is similar to that of the seaweed.

[mountain moss]



This is the moss that I have experimented with last week.

dry: almost no smell
wet: cucumber-like, champignon-like, little salty, little seaweed, the air of the mountain/forest

[silver moss]



dry: slightly reminds me of an apple
wet: fresh, little sour-sweet

[pine moss] polytrichum juniperium



dry: almost no smell
wet: green, vegetable-like, like a bitter melon

[iceland moss] chondrus crispus



dry: little woody, little salty, dry
wet: almost like oak moss... warm, woody, little salty, little honey, taking a walk in the forest

This smells nice, relaxing! And it smells very similar to the oak moss.
The color is different but the shape resembles to each other.
But they are completely the different sort of moss.

Iceland moss: chondrus crispus
Oak moss: evernia prunastri vacuum

Today I have experimented the Iceland moss with the soxhlet.
Since 15:40 it's repeating itself... even till now.





I've got the mini electric cooking table. The year 70's... very cute.