DIY Meyer Lemon Tincture for Natural Perfume - and Lemon Bars Recipe

Shaved lemons, microplaner, and grated peel

My Meyer lemon tree is bursting with fruit.  Meyer lemon trees give you a big bang for your buck.  Mine reaches three feet, max.  I just pulled fourteen lemons off it.    They’re thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange or mandarin.  Compared to true lemons, Meyer lemons are juicier and sweeter with a peel that is thinner and less pithy.   The peel smells just like the juice tastes – tangy, less sour than true lemon with a roundness like bergamot. 

The fastest way to dry the peel is to use a microplaner.   Simply grate off the skin, being careful not to go too deeply into the bitter pith.  Some sites recommend using your oven or microwave to dry, but I think this destroys some of the essential oils in the peel.  Plus, with the warmer weather we’ve been having, it’s simple just to leave the peel on the counter to dry.  It took a full day for mine to air dry.


You can use the resulting dried peel for cooking, and of course, perfume!  I added the dried peel of fourteen lemons into about 8 oz. of 200 proof organic ethanol.  I’m going to leave it in a cool dark place to tincture, taking out to shake every day. 

Meyer Lemon Bars

Now my only problem is what to do with the bald lemons.  I made lemon bars with two of them.  The others will just have to wait until I get feeling back into my wrist (did I mention there were 14 lemons?).  


Meyer Lemon Bars Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
•  
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 Meyer lemons, juiced, (about 1/3 cup)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust.
4. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven. The bars will firm up as they cool.

Musings on Buying Essential Oils for Natural Perfumes

I’ve just finished a few custom blends and am ready to start replenishing my supplies.  I need to order more essences.  This can be a hit or miss process since the oils scents can change even among the same suppliers depending on the season, the weather, the alignment of the planets, the wiggle of the earthworms. . .  what I’m saying is shopping for essential oils is not an exact science. 

It pays to shop around.  Different suppliers can have vastly different prices for the same oils.   Reputation matters in this business, since adulteration of essential oils is a big problem, particularly when spectrometers aren’t exactly a household appliance (save for the one on your face).  My favorite suppliers are Mountain Rose Herbs (Eugene, Oregon) and Eden Botanicals (Hyampon, California).  Mountain Rose aims to keep prices reasonable and has a good selection of herbs, teas, and spices in addition to oils.  Eden Botanical’s website provides detailed descriptions of its oils and always includes samples in your order.

I’ve also bought from Essential Oil University–  I am expecting a second order from them next week.  The wonderful natural perfumer Charna from Providence Perfume didn’t love the yuzu she ordered from Essential Oil University – but I found the sample I received to be quite zesty and alive.  Perhaps I was lucky to have received a fresher sample?  Citrus oils lose their quality more easily than others.  Or maybe EOU improved their quality after reading Charna's article?  We’ll see if I still like the yuzu when the full product comes next week.

One product that has been reliable is the frankincense (boswellia frereana) from Edens Garden (different than Eden Botanicals).  It's rich, woodsy aroma doesn't have the sharp edges other frankincenses can have and isn't medicinal smelling.  

If you are thinking of buying from Ebay, make sure you fully question the seller about their oils.  Sellers who purport to sell “essential oils” often sell “fragrance oils” side by side to their EO’s without making a clear distinction.  Let cost be your guide: if a deal’s too good to be true, it is.

Japanese honeysuckle makes a cooling tea, and hopefully a fragrant tincture.

Finally, don’t underestimate the benefits of tincturing your own plants.  Sure, it’s a long wait.  You have to shake the bottle regularly.   You have to find a good source of high proof alcohol, which can be expensive.  But it’s rewarding.  I was at my local Chinese grocery store yesterday and found all sorts of interesting things that screamed to be tinctured.  Dried honeysuckle.  Green jasmine tea.  Star anise.  Dried shiso leaves.  Not sure if they’ll all be successful but the experimentation is part of the fun.  

Yuzu is one of the more expensive citrus oils.

Maybe I can even tincture some yuzu.  

Tinctures Part IV - Jasmine Blossoms Disaster

I've been tincturing these past few months.  I used 151 proof Everclear, jam bottles, and different aromatics like cherries, blueberries, orange peel, rooibos tea, and jasmine flowers.  I finally checked on my jasmine flowers tincture today.  The jasmine flowers floated like yellow pompoms in the alcohol.  I opened the jar, and took a whiff.  Too large a whiff.  Eww!  The most horrible stench filled my nostrils, stung my eyes, made me sneeze.

Yikes!  What went wrong?  How did a quarter pound of what started as fragrant buds of organic jasmine end up smelling like toxic waste?  

Organic jasmine buds await an awful fate

After dumping the mess in the sink and blowing my nose for about an hour to blow out the horrible fumes, I think I figured it out.  When I first mixed the jasmine with the Everclear, I distinctly remember a few buds sticking out from the surface of the water.  I told myself at the time that they would eventually settle/sink after being soaked with alcohol.  A key step in tincturing is to fully cover the tinctured plants with alcohol.  This prevents the stuff sticking out from molding, decaying, putrifying, if you will.  


My jasmine buds had not sunk, they were floating on the service.  They had gone, in a word, bad.


Now I think I will go blow my nose again.  Lesson learned.

Part III on Tincturing Fruits - Sticky Experiments in Natural Perfumes

If you've been following my tincture posts, you'll know I've been at it for more than a month now.  


I removed the sugar from my sticky cherry tincture using bowls, rock, sun, and, most importantly, plastic wrap.  Since the weather has been most foul recently, evaporation and condensation processes have taken a good few weeks.  But I now have about 15 ml of tinctured cherry.  Yes!


I've used a 151 proof Everclear for the tincture.  190 proof food grade alcohol is ideal (e.g., 95% alcohol) yet unattainable in California.  I've been itching to get my hands on the stronger stuff.  If all goes well during these experiments, I intend to buy organic grain or grape alcohol from a farm I'd heard great things about in Portland.  Best to experiment with the cheaper stuff first just to get proportions right, etc.  





Back to the tincture.  Since I used 151 proof, I am wary that any essential oils I add will cloud my solution, i.e., not dissolve properly.  I'm first going to add one drop of peru balsam to a tiny vial.  Peru balsam has a lovely spicy vanilla smell I think will make a good base note to compliment the cherries.   

Cherry tincture with bitter orange and peru balsam

Next I begin adding my tinctured cherries, one drop at a time.  As expected, the mixture clouds as soon as the tincture hits the balsam.  After nine drops however, things clear up (so far we have a 10% dilution).  I add a tenth drop just to keep things simple.  Shake.  Things stay clear.  Whew.  At this point, let me just say how important risk taking is in this business.  One drop can make a difference between sunshine and clouds.  You have to be prepared to lose some to win some.  Not to mention, glass vials can be both tiny and slippery.  One wrong move and you could have a jasmine scented house for the rest of the year.   Not a bad thing, but how easily it could have been oakmoss, which smells like pruney cough syrup in its unblended state.

No, those aren't fingerprints, the perfume is cloudy.

For my top note, I've chosen bitter orange, mostly because I just got a new bottle and it smells wonderful.  Citrusy, bright, more complex than sweet orange.  I add two drops.  Clouds on the horizon.  Chase it with twenty more drops of tincture.  Shake.  Cloudy still.  Add ten more drops.  Shake.  Less cloudy. 


So far we have: 1 drop peru balsam, 2 drops bitter orange, 40 drops tincture.  I'm going to wait a few days to see how things shake out, so to speak.  Hopefully this perfume's future is not clouded, but only time will tell.  Ah yes, and how do things smell at this point, you might ask?  I uncap and inhale.  


Like a walk through a field of orange groves as the first rays of sun turn the air golden.  Stay tuned!


To browse our natural perfumery, please visit Mermaid Lane Perfumes.  

Tinctures - Natural Perfumes - When and why to use alcohol in your DIY homemade perfumes

Natural perfumery typically uses one of two "carriers" - the base into which you add your essential oils.  You can use a carrier oil, or an alcohol based carrier (high proof vodka, for example).    I favor Jojoba oil for its rich, skin friendly qualities.  Alcohol can be drying to the skin, not to mention flammable to work with.  Yet, alcohol based perfumes do have their draws.  For one, you can use an atomizer to dispense a given amount of perfume over a wider area, and for two, alcohol based perfumes "lift" the smell of a given blend.   Oil based perfumes sink deeper and stay longer.  The same blend of essential oils, when mixed into an alcohol versus an oil carrier, transform into something more fleeting and airy.

Not all essential oils or absolutes will blend nicely into an alcohol based carrier depending on the proof  and the particular essence you are trying to dissolve.  Higher proof alcohol has less water in it.   Water doesn't blend with oil so you run the risk of clouding your perfume.  Everclear apparently has a 190 proof alcohol, but this isn't available in California so we must settle for their less potent 151 proof version.  It's about $16.99 for a bottle.

Why tincture?  Tincturing (steeping an aromatic in the alcohol) before adding the essential oils helps to "flavor" the carrier in a deeper and more lasting way than simply adding an essential oil and shaking.  Typically "top" notes like citruses can transform into base notes by extracting the oil through tincturing.  I don't know how the magic works.  However, the longer you let your tincture sit (shaking it every day to remix), the more intense the tincture becomes.  You can also strain your tinctured matter through a coffee filter and retincture by adding more of whatever you're tincturing, resulting in a more concentrated base.  Another important reason to tincture is that certain aromatics aren't easy to extract essential oils from (apples, for example).  To knock the scents out of them, so to speak, you would need to tincture.

I decided to try: freeze dried blueberries (no need to dry them yourself, obviously), rooibos tea leaves, dried cherries, dried apricots, and orange peel which I sundried myself.  I also ordered some dried jasmine blossoms but haven't received them yet.

I took glass jars and filled them with my aromatics, then covered the aromatics with my 151 Everclear.  Shook.  I put them in a dark cupboard, taking them out daily for a shaking.  Seven days have passed.

I opened up the bottles.  All of them are pretty strong on the scent of alcohol.  I dabbed some on my wrist.  After the alcohol evaporated (10 seconds), what remained was a lovely whisper of the aromatic.  They need more time, so I recapped.

One thing I should mention - the fruit tinctures leave a sticky residue.  You could eventually dilute the tincture in order to reduce the stickiness, but of course that would reduce the intensity of the scent.  A friend suggested a centrifuge.  I do not have a centrifuge.  So this is one limitation with fruits.

Even the no-sugar added freeze dried blueberries are somewhat tacky.  Not to mention intensely grape colored.  So here is another limitation on tincturing certain fruits - the colors.  I imagine a very light grape color would be pretty in a perfume bottle, but certainly no one wants to wear something that looks like ink.  Will update on this experiment in a week.

To peruse our line of natural/organic perfumes, please visit Mermaid Lane Perfumes