iPigeon.institute Local Botanical Item Spotlights - Mitica brand honeycomb, from Gelson's.

Update, and quick note: yipes! This product could potentially cause severe eye irritation! Be very wary about using the product described in this blog article, as far as cosmetic use goes. 

 One of my more recent fragrance fascinations was with the raw material, the honeycomb. I'd once had a great sample of Beeswax Absolute, which I highly enjoyed, and, which I'd mixed in to some fragrance compositions, with some slight attainment about them. I found the material very overpoweringly dominant, in what I felt, at the time, were small portions (I was just beginning to investigate and experiment with perfumery materials, having come from a background in making fragrance compositions with essential oils and absolutes that are more commonly found in local retail stores. 

In any case, I was fascinated by the physiological, or psychoactive (bioactive, perhaps, at least), effects of Beeswax Absolute, and, once I had run out of my sample product, I'd sometimes obsess over the ingredient, and I'd spend a lot of time, here and there, trying to find out new things to know about the product, itself, and I also developed a fascination with producing the absolute, myself, as well. 

Recently, I came across a great retail product beeswax honeycomb, by Mitica brand, which I found at Gelson's grocery store. I made sure to pick one up, since I had lots of money on my Food Stamps account, still. The item comes in its own frame and plastic box (which, for aroma chemical extraction, might not be the best material, but this is just my first try at producing my own agricultural fragrance ingredient from this material).

A top view of Mitica brand's honeycomb box, which includes a frame that the beeswax and honey, contained within the honeycomb, is built upon.

A diagonal view of Mitica's honeycomb box and frame. I felt that the product was ideal, over other choices in retail honeycomb availability, particularly on account of that a box and frame are included with the product.

I had not much knowledge base to work from, as far as discovering literature in regards to the chemical and molecular composition and form of honeycomb and beeswax material, so I had to do some looking up, of things. I had some notion that I could try to produce an alternative product to an absolute, using regular cooking vinegar. I tried it out, by soaking the honeycomb frame, in the box, and I felt that it could take weeks, or months, or more, perhaps, for a full extraction, as limited as with vinegar, solely, as the extraction fluid, although evaporation would be fairly reliable, I figured, and there could be useful compounds produced, with acetic acid thrown in to the equation, given that I be patient. 

At this point, it's been a few weeks, or so, and I noticed some slight changes - almost of that the beeswax seemed almost alive, in and of itself, even under vinegar, since I felt that some of the beeswax seemed to have creeped along, further out, on to the frame's top edges, where I don't remember seeing beeswax establishments, previously. The vinegar solution, itself, slowly became yellowish, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, in this instance of experimentation. 

Upon investigating the solvency considerations of the material, it was learned that the extraction would be best done with a polar solvent. I don't have any of the standard solvents, on hand, but, at one point, I became reminded that I have dimethyl octenone on hand, of which, I'd had previously employed a similar (somewhat) product, in doing an extraction and production method, as an experiment, with 3-octanone, as part of the extraction. Dimethyl octenone has a fairly relative olfactory scent profile to 3-octanone, and I figured that it is a polar solvent, in and of itself, perhaps as a scarce fraction of some other, more gross product of some other agricultural crop, in being separated, for qualitative purposes.

With a 15 mL bottle of dimethyl octenone, I was capable of pouring around a third, or less,  of the bottle out, in to the vinegar solution, and still cover the entire top surface area. Immediately, I noticed that the two layers didn't immediately mix; it was like oil and water, so I felt that my decision to employ dimethyl octenone was justified. This was yesterday. The liquid in the box became very vaporous, so I felt that perhaps a timeline of an extraction, in this experiment phase, would work along a much quicker timeline. If you'd notice, in the first photo, some of the honeycomb cells are destroyed, over on the top left. There are also some "breathing holes" that had developed, as a result of introducing the dimethyl octenone to the solvent solution (I shook the box, so the liquids became a more thorough solution). I figured, dimethyl octenone, pungent and musky solvent-smelling that it is, it'll eventually evaporate off; I should seek to establish more generalized visible similarities between what I produce, regardless of what it is, specifically, and if the viscosity, or consistency, in terms of the product's thickness, or solidity, becomes a familiar and standard sort of outcome, it would be easier to sit and wait for this type of portion of patience being necessary, being that dimethyl octenone might only dissipate over several weeks, or so, perhaps. 

Part of the challenge would be discovering what becomes of the wax, itself. I would typically take a "hands-off" approach to playing with my extraction experiments, and just stick to observation, and just the slightest of mixing, or disturbance of the solution, but, in this case, I touched the corner of the beeswax, and it melted like cake frosting, so I knew, then, that the extraction would be successful, from here. Only time will tell, as to what the outcome of this experiment will produce.

Update:

This honeycomb / beeswax project continues to reveal delicate mysteries about its form, within the acidic, polar solvent liquid At this stage, 4 days later, following the original post, the Mitica honeycomb's plastic box proves to have taken on acid damage, bearing leaks, and penetration, through the outer layers of plastic, whereas the now emulsified lipophilic liquid, which has incorporated the beeswax, as liquid beads, as an outer phase of emulsifier, wherein the solvent layer acts as the inner phase, with the dimethyl octenone / acetic acid, perhaps mixed with the plastic, somehow acting as a surfactant, to make the emulsification fairly molecularly small. Have a look! 

This (not so delicate) bulge is pretty resilient, in fact - almost like a rubbery latex, in texture, but definitely bendable and flexible, with the plastic walls having disintegrated, due to the particular nature of the acidic polar solvency of the solution. I'd suppose it would be a perfumer's hand at pulling off this trick; some of it is just gestural artistry, since I didn't know that this would happen - although if you did the same extraction, it very well could happen for you, also. 

iPigeon.institute Local Botanical Item Spotlights - Pasadena Pink Peppercorns

 One of Southern California's most well-adapted agricultural crop trees (aside from citrus) is the peppercorn. I come across various peppercorn trees, in my travels about town, but I felt that my most recent encounter, in Pasadena, is situated in a central-enough location, with (somewhat) untended trees, along a highway road, over a bridge, or something like that. My phone, which I'm typing this on, runs location history slowly, so I'm having some trouble recreating the Maps location, for the time being. 

Regardless, the pursuit of fresh peppercorns, whether they be for culinary or fragrance extraction purposes, are a notably invigoratingly-scented botanical product, with a stimulating, warming effect that is well known by herbs and spices enthusiasts. Peppercorns, in my fragrance compositions, for example, are an essential spice note that I commonly employ - I like the effect of pepper oil, in combination with adding vanilla - depending on the mixture, it could act as a base note, or it could be part of a larger floral and spice bouquet, and it blends a seamless texture in to citrus woods, if spices are desired, in a case such as that. 

We all know peppercorns, from the store bought ground or whole peppers, and if you'd ever tried peppercorns in grinders, you'd know the difference, in both culinary and fragrance contexts. 

"Pink" peppercorns, (I'd estimate), procured from a lonely side road pepper tree in Pasadena, CA.

I hadn't studied much on peppercorns, as far as their constituent aroma chemical components, but, I believe that some of the components are a primary building block in TiHKaL molecular compounds, with some of the effects of my volatile and fast-decomposing fragrance compositions tending towards dimethyltryptamine sorts of psychedelia resonance experiences, an effect that was coupled with the compositions broader context in being an anti-inflammatory topically-applied fragrance compound, made with isopropyl alcohol, rather than ethanol, with the skin-permeable effect as my goal for the fragrance compounds. There had also been some light to moderate feelings of drunken euphoria, although this portion required stimulants, in and of their own right, and the fragrance compounds acted as a prodrug, I would suppose, with so much anti-inflammatory effect, from the fragrance spray, that further extents of physical exertion and traveling, around town (which had also been done in Pasadena, by the way), during which times I'd become more particular, in discovering agricultural specialty plants that the city hosts.

A peppercorn-specialty fragrance-affected "Tripping Pigeon," as rendered by Google Labs' ImageFX.

Having fresh peppercorns, as a culinary or fragrance specialty product, is an easy premise to work from, with a maceration of the product, if it is entirely fresh, (the outer shell, as well), it will easily mash in to a pasty peppery oil mixture, which can be employed directly on dishes that call for peppercorns, or, the product can be sieved off, and drained directly in to a hydrosol or a natural fragrance composition, in the works. Having a fresh product is typically a bit more special than using dried product, especially in cases in which some of the volatile compounds are preserved in the raw natural material, until dissolved in solvent, for extraction, or, disturbed, and activated, by maceration, for example.

Update - important!

I taste-tested this particular peppercorn specimen, on a hard boiled egg, yesterday, and I found it to have some strong elements to it, which resembled eucalyptus-type oil, which I'm not really in to, comparatively. Eucalyptus trees have gotten a reputation, around my general aesthetic periphery of annotations spoken upon my travels and activities, of being a urine-processing tree; meaning, essentially, that the plant specimen had adjusted its metabolism to a more primitive purpose, rather than a better agricultural purpose. I suppose that I ought to find some other fresh pepper trees, somewhere, or, perhaps, spend some of the time I have, when I go out to Pasadena, to see if this problematic issue could be resolved, with some care to the tree(s), over time. I just felt that this note was important to make known. 

The iPigeon.institute online store (preview launch).

 I'm launching a private preview to my new online store, which will be offering essential oil and fragrance absolute personal misting bottle aromatherapy and personal care products, such as natural soaps, and other toiletry products, to come, in the near future. 

Here is the temporary (private) link to preview the online launch of my e-commerce store:

https://ipigeoninstitute.mybigcommerce.com/?guestTkn=8cihzrus4z

The store aims to provide direct-to-consumer deals on personal and home aesthetics and care products, with iPigeon.institute-unique flair and artisan | boutique exclusivity. Consumers benefit from my constant efforts in sourcing quality ingredients and from my dedications to research and online publishing, in which I discover online resources which have led me to be able to provide affordable luxury products, with all-natural ingredients, of high quality and purity, hand-made with care and with attention to the utmost standards in manufacturing.