Experiment Complete

The frankincense experiment, for the time being, is done. There is nearly a gallon of oil-dotted hydrosol, and a few mls of frankincense oil, stinky and bright, kind'a pushy. It was definitely worth the hours and hours and hours of distilling, the occasional "accident", and the questions from curious teens, friends of the resident teens. I overheard one boy ask my son if I was "cooking meth", a look of horror and fear on his face.

The still is finally clean after several stove-top boilings and a brutal scrubbing with a wire pad. Frankincense oil-making is a lesson in many things -- the virtue of patience being one. A day or so after the big explosion, I went to put on my favorite fleece jacket that had been recently washed, and noticed, with just a bit of displeasure, that it had been thrown in the laundry with the rags used to clean the frankincense mush off the walls (and cabinets, refrigerator door, window, stove hood, stove top -- oh, and ceiling). My fleece is saturated in frankincense stink. Which isn't a bad thing, especially while sitting in a crowded movie theater next to a girl wearing Uggs that smell like dog doo, dill pickles, sweat and rotted meat.

I've been formulating again (with gusto). The current work is a juxtaposed scent of cilantro leaf and a really sweet patchouli scored from Enfleurage. It's the Vietnamese variety, and quite possibly the sweetest patch I've ever smelled. The two together, the cilantro and patchouli, dance well, stepping on one another's toes only occasionally. I'm having a little more trouble with the others dancers in the ballroom. It's on its eighth modification and the general consensus is that it smells like a hippie smoking salsa.

Patience, m'dear.