I had the devil’s own time diluting Tonka Bean Absolute, Cistus Absolute, Labdanum Absolute, Helichrysum Absolute and Mango Ginger CO2.
The picture above shows you the fight we’re still having after a hot water bath. Arghhhh!!!!
Cistus and Labdanum absolutes I had to put in a bain marie without the labels and almost screwed up which was which when they finally became pourable and I was ready to dilute. Speed is of the essence as that pourability only last about 2 minutes before it starts going all hard again.
With some of them, after heating the original absolute and measuring it out on the scale, once in the alcohol I still had to remove some stubborn lumps. I shook it for what seemed like forever and after that still didn’t work I ended up heating the alcohol solution in hot water with the cap slightly loose, swooshing it slowly every once in a while and that did the trick (please be careful when heating alcohol though it can be dangerous — I did not use an open flame, just hot water).
All except for Tonka Bean Absolute, it remains resolute and unbending, but I will be the last (wo)man standing.
**** Update: July 24, 2014 ****
Finally got the this beast diluted! In the end I decided to dilute the whole 5ml into a 50ml bottle. Had to put the bottle of absolute in a pot of water in a pan of water over a low flame on a small burner (later a post from, Eline, one of my blog readers, confirmed that she does the same thing!). After about 30 minutes it became fully liquid and then I added 39gr of alcohol. It’s now more like a 13% dilution. What’s really odd now is that the diluted absolute has a faint fecal-like smell, it’s less vanilla-y than when I first smelled it straight from the bottle, now it’s more animalic, even a faint impression of urine. Really weird.
Her Two Scents 