Newbie needs advice on essential oil making.

[graywoulf]

Greetings all,

As only a user of essential oils so far, I have decided to try to make my own using the flower petals of a small group of August Lillies growing beside my home. I have looked at so much confusing information so far and I see that the process is fairly simple. I have a question though. I want to use this fragrance in an ultrasonic diffuser that I have and so far, I have not found the best oil to diffuse the flower petals in. Another question I have is can I use just a carrier oil like sweet almond oil or fractionated coconut oil by itself? I don't know how much oil I can make from these flowers but I would like for the scent to be strong enough to fill the room. I have attached a picture of the flowers I want to use and any advice will be greatly appreciated. Take care.

 

[lsg]

In my experience it takes a whole lot of material to get a very small amount of EO. Depending on how you will use the product produced, you might want to make a hydrosol. That would work in lotions, creams and shower gel.

 

[DeeAnna]

It's an appealing idea to distill your own EOs, but unless you grow a huge plot of plants to harvest and have a lot of determination and patience, it's not very practical.

Few plants have an EO yield of 1% or more. For other plants, such as roses, the yield is well below 0.1%. Any way you look at it, you need to distill a LOT of plant matter to get a reasonable amount of EO.

You can infuse plant material in fats, but you can't use a fat-based infusion in an ultrasonic diffuser. It might work in an oil warmer, but not a diffuser.

You'd be better off, as lsg suggests, to make a hydrosol from your lilies and use that in your diffuser.

 

[graywoulf]

I really appreciate the information and suggestions. I am a bit disappointed to know that my small patch of August Lilys is not enough to do what I would like to do. They smell awesome in the late evening and I was hoping to be able to enjoy that wonderful fragrance through the winter as well. I wish I could find an EO that closely matched that fragrance.

Thanks again for the information and education.

 

[DeeAnna]

To be honest, if you've never smelled the EO from these lilies, you might be in for a surprise. An EO doesn't necessarily smell the same as the fragrance from the live plant. For example , rose EO routinely disappoints those new to EOs -- in concentrated form, it smells rather sour and artificial and is not very appealing. IMO a hydrosol often smells a lot more like the fragrance of the live plant.

Not every plant produces EO or hydrosol. Not having messed with August lilies, I have no idea if they make a fragrant hydrosol. You'd want to check if other people are making and selling a hydrosol from the lilies or perhaps try a test distillation on your own. If they do make a fragrant hydrosol, you can produce a whole lot more hydrosol than EO, the hydrosol will work fine in a diffuser, and it's possible you could like the hydrosol as well or better than the EO.

I've seen videos where people proudly show the few drops of EO they got from a distillation but they don't seem to be too enthused about the half liter of hydrosol they produced from the same distillation. Frankly the real success of all that work is the hydrosol.

I have made hydrosol from sweetgrass. Sweetgrass is one of those plants that doesn't produce any EO, but its hydrosol has a very appealing scent. Elderberry flowers, on the other hand, can be used to make a fragrant honey or sugar syrup or a fragrant alcohol infusion, but they don't produce EO and they don't produce a pleasantly fragrant hydrosol.

If a person can let go of the goal of making an essential oil and focus on making hydrosol, it's possible to optimize the distillation to produce a hydrosol with the best fragrance. Basically you stop sooner in the distillation process sooner -- at the point where the condensate (aka the hydrosol) still has the aroma you're seeking. If the distillation continues beyond that point, as you would do if making EO, the aroma of the condensate will gradually become more "green" or "toasted" or "grassy" smelling. You don't want to add those odors to the hydrosol, so for the nicest hydrosol you'd stop the distillation the instant your nose smells those notes.

 

[graywoulf]

Thanks for the advice on making hydrosol instead of EO. At this point, I do not think that my small patch of August lilies would produce much of either. I picked one petal and smelled it and it alone did not have a lot of fragrance. I even lightly crushed it between my fingers and that really did not make any difference. They produce their fragrance best in the late evening. I even set a fan on my front porch to direct the fragrance into the house for the enjoyment of the fragrance. I guess that I can expect to enjoy them only once per year and only just for a week or two.

 

[dibbles]

Sometimes it’s impossible to match what Mother Nature gifts to us. I love the smell of Stargazer Lilies and my heirloom peony (from my great grandmother’s plants). I’ve never found something that compares to either.