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.

extracting the moss (4) comparison

[1] glycerine
soft, rounded, mushroom-like, earthy, less seaweed than others (very soft top note)

[2] alcohol 99.8%
seaweed-like, little green, lasts long (top/middle note)

[3] coconut oil
sour like milk acid ---> threw away

[4] infusion in hot water
sour like milk acid ---> threw away

[5] arachide oil
sour like milk acid ---> threw away


[6] water distillation

[6-1] conserved with salt
very salty, lasts long (longer than 6-2)

[6-2] conserved with lactone + ...
salty, little sour, lasts long

[7] soxhlet distillation with alcohol 96%

[7-1] the liquid left in the flask
similar to [2], little earthy, little seaweed, little green tea, well concentrated, lasts long (top/middle note)

[7-2] the liquid left in middle-room
salty, too-long cooked green tea, less concentrated than [7-1]


After one day the extract made with the soxhlet distillation [7-1] got more rounded and turned out to be the best balanced, concentrated one.

extracting the moss (3) soxhlet distillation

1. experiment with soxhlet distillation



- 96% ethanol +- 150 ml
- 3 teabags with the moss

Soxhlet distillation is like dry-cleaning.
Normally hexane is being used for retrieving essential oils.





Alcohol vapors and then condenses again.
Because it repeats itself, I let it go while I was preparing dinner and feeding my son.
But that was not a good idea.
The heater was perhaps set too strong.
The flask got a little burned,
and the result did not smell like the moss at all.
It smelled like green tea which is been infused too long.

2. experimenting with the conservation methods

Dealing with the scent means dealing with the evaporation and decay.
Conservation is a profession itself, so it's not that easy.

I devided 160ml distilled moss water of yesterday's in two: 80 ml each,
and tried 2 things.

[1] conservation with the salt
The same principle with making pickles.
I added 4% of salt so that it became close to the sea water.



[2] conservation with Roconxal
Roconxal is being used often for cosmetics. It does not function when pH is above 5.
With the pH paper I carefully added lactone - when I added 3 drops it became pH 4.
But there was one problem: Roconxal was not water based!
Now I have to look for something alternative.