Wood rasping

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Wood rasping is particularly exciting to work with as some of their scents are quite new and unusual. Choose from shreds or rasping of cedar wood, rosewood, sandalwood, cassia chips and any of the fruit woods like apple, pear or cherry which have a faint but sweet aroma, and look out for new varieties available. If you discover anything unusual it is worth checking from the supplier if the wood has any skin irritating properties. The highly concentrated essential oils of cassia, cinnamon bark, dwarf pine, thug, and wintergreen are toxic and should never be applied to skins though the wood chippings, as far as we know, do not irritate the skin when they are handled. All spices have a strong aroma and should be used sparingly. The ideal quantity is about 1 tbsp (15 ml) to 4 cups of flowers and leaves. Selected spices are usually added in equal proportions. These can give a ‘musky’ or ‘oriental’ quality, or suggest a ‘masculine’ or winter scent. The final ingredient for a pot pourri is a fixative. This is an aromatic plant part which gives up its fragrance very slowly and thereby lasts longer. In perfume blending it is called a base note. As the odoriferous molecules evaporate more slowly, they slow down the evaporation rate of other scents present, hence they all last longer.