Cold Maceration?

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BayBoy

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Joined
Apr 14, 2017
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Hello,

In my adventure to create a bay rum scented aftershave, I assumed the best way would be to soak the dried leaves in Everclear for several weeks.

However, I read somewhere that maybe I should be using a solution of water and alcohol because some chemicals are only water soluble.

Question #1: Do you agree? And if so, what would the correct ratio of water:alc? I'm guessing 1:1...

Question #2: my final product is 1 part alcohol and 1 part of a solution of 50% ater and 50% witch hazel. Would it be orthodox to steep the leaves using the water/witch hazel solution? Or should the witch hazel be added at the end?
 
Both alcohol and water are polar molecules,but alcohol is less polar than water. Therefore, polar molecules and ionic compounds (e.g. salts) dissolve less in alcohol. On the other hand, alcohol is organic molecule and water is inorganic and hence organic molecules would not dissolve in water but would be soluble in alcohol(e.g. essential oils, fatty acids, esters...).

My conclusion-use alcohol. All water soluble components are soluble in alcohol, but some components soluble in alcohol are not soluble in water. Most of the biologically active substances are organic compounds and only soluble in alcohol (and other organic solvents), others are equally soluble in water and alcohol.

Hope this is helpfull :)
 
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