To commemorate her 69th birthday on October 1st, actress/vocalist, Julie Andrews made a special appearance at  Manhatten’s Radio City Music Hall. One of the musical numbers she performed was My Favourite Things from the legendary Sound of Music. It is quite spooky that I should have been thinking about the same thing at about the same time. Here are the lyrics she used:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts, and hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the pipes leak,
When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no need for sinnin’,
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin’,
And we won’t mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favourite things.

When the joints ache,
When the hips break,
the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I’ve had,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

Absolutely brilliant! I am indebted to Gill Farrer-Halls for sharing this gem with us. In the meantime, please keep your own Favourite Things coming. Thus far, I already have quite a challenging list to judge. Well done!

Nevertheless, should some desire a further challenge, I have devised a small quiz around the “most worn” perfume of all time - Chanel No.5. A £50 Essentially Oils Gift Voucher to the first correct answer.

1.“Coco” was her sobriquet, but what was Chanel’s christian name?
2.What secured for all time her fame as a designer?
3.Who was the creator of Chanel No.5?
4.Where was he born, and when?
5.This could be speculative, but why No.5, and for what possible reason.?
6.In what year was No.5 first introduced, and for what gracious purpose?
7.Luxury for us is minimalism. Chanel made this true. Paul Morand called her what?
8.Chanel commissioned which glassworks to manufacture the No.5 flacon in the image of a toiletry bottle belonging to a travel set owned by her lover and companion?
9.Who was the lover and companion and how did he die, and when?
10.Who personified the legend of Chanel No.5 with her quote, “Five drops of No.5”, in answer to the question of what she wears at night. In fact, she was just repeating an old advertising slogan from the 1930s!

About this and that, and Hibiscus in particular.
Recently I was asked what would be worth growing in Uganda. Initially my thoughts turned to sunflower, because the Ukraine, the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil with a 41% market share, could ban exports to curtail skyrocketing domestic prices, as other agricultural countries have done. On second thoughts though, roses might be a better bet, as their price is rising quite sharply and it is unlikely that it will come down soon.

The 2007 rose harvests were not spared the severe climatic problems that affected many crops, especially aromatic products, in several regions of the world this year. The three major producing countries suffered a very unusual conjunction of events, including exceptionally mild and dry winters, late frosts, warm winds and a lack of spring rains. As a result, the harvest totalled only about 10,000 tons of blossoms, down by 30% compared with 2006.

In Morocco, blossoms were destroyed by frost in April and there was virtually no production. In Turkey, the long drought that beset the country this year reduced rose production by 30%, bringing it down to 5,500 tons. In Bulgaria, the drop in production remained limited due to new output from a number of growing operations initiated over the past three years, but the drought affected the quality of the blossoms and oil yields are down 15%.

This situation has boosted prices, especially in Turkey. After dipping precariously low in 2006, rose prices in Turkey have increased by 40% this year. Although the rise in Bulgaria has been only 15%, rose blossom prices are now virtually identical in both countries, which has not happened since 2000.

Unsurprisingly, the weak harvests and low yields have led to a shortage in rose products. Oil production this year comes to about 2.5 tons, which is 700 kilos less than the average of the previous three crop years. Concrete production has fallen by more than 2 tons, to below 6 tons in all. Like the blossoms, Turkish oil prices have risen sharply, and Bulgarian less so, with a trend toward parity between the two origins. Enjoy the special offers!

I was just coming to the conclusion that roses could grow well in Uganda when an article in Natural Products News caught my eye.

Simply Hibi, a health drink created by two enterprising Cumbrian farmers based on the flowers of the hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.), is helping to encourage a better life for struggling farm workers in Uganda. The hibiscus crop generates thrice the income made  from cotton or maize and so increases the welfare of whole villages. Interesting!

A variety of names - hibiscus, roselle, Sudanese tea, red tea, and Jamaica sorrel - designate the flowers (actually calyces and bracts) of Hibiscus sabdariffa. This red-flowered annual of the family Malvaceae is widely cultivated throughout the tropics, reaching a height of four to five feet or more. Its flower heads are collected when immature and are highly prized for food purposes. The floral parts also make a pleasant tea and are used by themselves or mixed with other herb teas.

Hibiscus is native from India to Malaysia, where it is commonly cultivated, and must have been brought to Africa at an early date. Seeds are said to have been carried to the New World by African slaves. Hibiscus was grown in Brazil in the 17th century and in Jamaica in 1707. The plant was being cultivated for food use in Guatemala before 1840 and, in 1892, there were 2 factories producing hibiscus jam in Queensland, Australia, and exporting significant amounts to Europe. Hibiscus became and remained a common garden crop throughout central and southern Florida until after World War II, when this area began to develop rapidly and home gardening and preserving declined. As a multiple-use species, hibiscus has much going for it.

The fresh calyx is eaten raw in salads, is cooked and used as a flavouring in cakes, etc., and is also used in making jellies, soups, sauces, pickles, puddings, etc. The calyx is rich in citric acid and pectin and so is useful for making jams. Rich in anthocyanins, it is used to add red colour and flavour and can be roasted and used as a coffee substitute, which is said to have aphrodisiac properties. A refreshing drink can be made by boiling the calyx, adding ginger and sweetening it with sugar. The tender young leaves, raw or cooked, are used in salads, as a potherb and as a seasoning in curries. They have an acid, rhubarb-like flavour. The root can be eaten but is very fibrous, without much flavour. The seed yields about 20% oil, which is used as a substitute for crude castor oil. A strong fibre obtained from the stem (called roselle hemp), which has great demand in various natural fibre utilizing industries, is used for many household purposes including making sackcloth, twine and cord. The Indonesians have no problems selling all the roselle gunny sacks they can make. What is more, if it is grown for fibre, much biomass remains as residue which can be used for energy purposes.

It would appear that hibiscus is much used in the tropics for medicinal purposes as well. The leaves are antiscorbutic, emollient, diuretic, refrigerant, and sedative. They are used as an emollient and as a soothing cough remedy and, externally, as a poultice on abcesses. Fruits are also reported to be antiscorbutic.

The flowers contain gossypetin, anthocyanin, and the glycoside hibiscin. These may have diuretic and choleretic effects, decreasing the viscosity of the blood, reducing blood pressure and stimulating intestinal peristalsis. The leaves and flowers are used internally as a tonic tea for digestive and kidney functions.

The ripe calyces are diuretic and antiscorbutic. The succulent calyx, boiled in water, is used as a drink in the treatment of bilious attacks. The seeds are diuretic, laxative and tonic. They are used in the treatment of debility. The bitter root is aperitif and tonic.

The plant is also reported to be antiseptic, aphrodisiac, astringent, cholagogue, demulcent, digestive, purgative and resolvent. One report says that the plant has been shown to be of value in the treatment of arteriosclerosis and as an intestinal antiseptic.

Obviously scientific verification of the various pharmacological properties of this interesting plant is required but, meanwhile, hibiscus imparts a taste that is pleasant to many. Thus there appears to be no reason to discourage anyone from using it for this purpose. Uganda could be onto a good thing!

Bug lurks elsewhere!
Hospitals are missing the key sources of MRSA infection by focusing on obviously “dirty” areas, an expert claimed recently.

Instead, cleaning should be targeted on “hand touch” sites in wards, such as handles, bed rails, lockers, and the switches, pumps and other equipment surrounding patients, said Dr. Stephanie Dancer.  
 
Evidence showed that these were the places most likely to harbour the antibiotic-resistant MRSA superbug. Yet they were generally poorly cleaned, said Dr. Dancer, from Glasgow’s South General Hospital.
According to Dr. Dancer, writing in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the responsibility for cleaning hand-touch sites usually rests with the ward nurses, who are often very busy and almost permanently understaffed in many hospitals.

Hospital hygiene was usually assessed visually, she said. Ward cleaners worked to a set of rules that prioritised the cleaning of floors and toilets, while scant regard was paid to the hidden dangers of invisible micro-organisms.

Buffing the floors in outpatients departments might improve the appearance of the waiting areas, but patients do not generally acquire MRSA from floors, wrote Dr. Dancer. I couldn’t agree more!

Too often, when visiting hospitals and nursing homes, I am bemused by the meanderings of ward cleaners as they swish and swipe their mops across the floors without so much as a glance at anything else. Occasionally, the more diligent will whip out a spray bottle of some unidentifiable liquid and fire it at a bedside locker where it is allowed to drip inexorably to the floor. Too true, the nurses are invariably run off their feet, but where is the old-fashioned Matron with a daily “military” inspection? Surely such a person could shake up discipline a bit, or is that asking too much? Perhaps it is, and so it might be wise to take your own arsenal of bug-killing wipes to attack the “hand touch” sites when next visiting hospital.

Back to black!
I know that I have used this subtitle before, but then it was in connection with restoring hair colour to an ageing Japanese population. On this occasion it is about the looming battle for the upper end of the $750m Indian haircare market.

I suppose that I had never really noticed it before but, when in India last year, I was struck by
the number of middle-aged men with magnificent manes of pumpkin orange hair.

Henna (Lawsonia inermis L.) has been used for thousands of years in North Africa and Asia and as red dye and as a scent. Mummies were wrapped in henna-dyed cloth in ancient Egypt. In Arabia and India, the leaves have traditionally been used to make a pigment for dying intricate linear patterns on the fingers, palms and feet. The leaves have also been used to dye not only human hair but the manes and tails of horses too. Before meeting Antony, Cleopatra reputedly soaked the sails of her barge in heady henna flower oil.

Henna has been the dominant haircare product for centuries in India and is used commonly, but far from exclusively, in Muslim communities. Traditionally men and women would disguise grey with henna until they were 60, or until they had grandchildren, and then allow themselves to age. Today, with all the gelling, spiking and streaking, everything is driven by fashion.

It seems that the male grooming market in India is one of the hottest segments of the global consumer goods universe. Indian men, according to research by Gillette, one of the prime beneficiaries of the trend, spend an average of 20 minutes in front of the mirror each morning against the 18 minutes spent by Indian women. Tell me, how does this compare with British men and women? I am a 5 minute man myself!

Still, the segment’s spectacular growth is creating a new front in the generational clash between middle-aged fathers and their increasingly westernised offspring, who think the orange look is hideous and a complete turn-off. However the orange-haired brigade don’t want to go grey and do not want or are unable to spend money on the expensive colours that are produced by the likes of L’Oreal, Wella and Schwarzkopf. Fair enough, but what is it about going grey that worries folk so much? For some years I envied the prematurely silver, considering the look rather distinguished, but now I’m not so sure!

A local manufacturer, Emami Group, has recently launched a male hair dye - Mr. Black - to cater for the less-well-off who henna their hair. Seems good value at £0.27 for a 50ml bottle, which works out at about threepence per application, little more than the cost of a sachet of henna powder, but will they go for this “back to black” product?

According to Tamar Kasriel, founder of Futureal, a trends consultancy, the Indian-ness of henna means it has the appeal of being home-grown, tried and tested for centuries. She thinks a strong men’s henna brand could take on all the multinational products flooding the market. She can forsee a resurgent confidence in what it means to be Indian and in Indian traditions, leading to the ‘rediscovery’ and growth of the henna market.

Also, within Ayurvedic and Unani medicine, henna leaves are commonly taken as a gargle for sore throats, and as an infusion or decoction for diarrhoea and dysentery. Do Schwarzcopf do a gargle?!

Henna’s leaves are astringent, prevent haemorrhaging and strongly promote menstrual flow. A decoction of the bark is used to treat liver problems. Applied in the form of a plaster, henna treats fungal infections, acne and boils.
 
Although some Indian city dwellers in their mid-30s may predict that, in an era of growing
self-consciousness about appearance, pumpkin orange hair is out, I wouldn’t bet on it!


Angel Water?
I have been researching for over a week......without any luck on the original recipe for Angel
Water from the 16th Century......where Hydrosol of Myrtle was used as a face tonic. Can you assist? asked Cheryl Jespersen from Fuengirola in southern Spain. I have researched and found an article written in your April 2000 Newsletter about Myrtle.

Good heavens, what did I write?! No longer being in the office, I cannot put my hands readily on the item. Perhaps it was something from Legends of Incense, Herb & Oil Magic by Lewis Declaremont......

“The flowers and leaves of myrtle, two handfuls, influse them in two quarts of spring water, and a quart of white wine, twenty-four hours, and then distil them in a cold still and this will be of strong scent and tincture, and by adding more or less of the myrtle you may make it stronger or weaker as you please. This beautifies, and mixed with cordial syrups is a good cordial and inclines those that drink it to be very amorous.”

The Myrtle (Myrtus communis L.) was used in the composition prepared for the intimate toilet of Venus, the goddess of love, and, probably because of this association, has always been regarded as a love tonic. 

The Angel Water of the eighteenth century was basically composed of extract of myrtle, and the following recipe is an English imitation of this famous Portuguese creation:

Shake together a pint of orange flower water, a pint of rose water, and half a pint of myrtle water. Add 2/3 of distilled spirit of musk, and 2/3 of ambergris. Keep in a cool place, as heat destroys the perfume.

I would not use musk or ambergris, even if they were available, because there are synthetics available that will do the job just as well, and why taint the pure hydrosols with anything else anyway?

However, for some reason, it seems that, whenever perfume materials are discussed, the few animal products ambergris, castoreum, civet and musk hold more fascination than do those of vegetable origin.

Knowing little of hydrosols, except what’s in them, I referred to Suzanne Catty’s pioneering book, Hydrosols: the next aromatherapy, for some ‘pointers’.

Myrtle hydrosol has a mild aroma: minty and dry smelling with just a hint of sugar sweetness.
Although a cineole-type, it lacks the rather unpleasant taste of eucalyptus, tea tree and niaouli hydrosols. Undiluted, it has a bitter edge and just a hint of the mintiness of the aroma. Diluted it is most palatable, as it loses its bitterness, and Ms. Catty finds it similar to Inula in flavour.

It is one of only four hydrosols recommended as an eyewash (the other three are Roman and German Chamomile and Cornflower), which I did not know. Mucolytic and expectorant, it is useful for calming chesty coughs and congested sinuses. Used as a prophylactic, myrtle could prevent seasonal recurring bronchitis and chest infections.

The mucolytic properties extend to the digestive tract, and this can be most useful in treating candidiasis. Colon health can be improved by using myrtle hydrosol in colonics, and there is extra benefit from the anti-inflammatory properties for problems like diverticulitis.

It seems that there is more to myrtle hydrosol than just being a love tonic and facial toner!

Of Ambergris and Musk.
Animal extracts are always used in minute concentrations because of their overpowering odour. Animal notes are sexy and very close chemically to our own sexual aromas. Today, the vast majority of animal notes are reproduced synthetically due to their prohibitive cost and the increasing difficulty of ensuring a steady supply of the real thing.

Ambergris is a strong-smelling waxlike secretion, formed in the stomach or intestine of the sperm whale (Physeter macroencephalus). No one quite knows why whales produce it. It is thought to be caused by the rough beaks of the squid that is its main diet irritating the lining of the stomach.

Disgorged at sea, the weathering of months or years in the water improves the smell. At first, it has a penetrating, pungent, odour, but time matures it to a velvety, sleek aroma, suavely musky with a flavour of clean, warm, suntanned skin. The finest is white ambergris, which has been floating at sea for a long time and is rarely more than a few grammes in weight. The largest single piece ever found, weighing 635 kilos, was brought in by the whalers of Larvik in Norway in 1908. It was sold for £23,000 and saved the company from bankruptcy!

The bacterium “Spirillum recti physeteris”, which occurs in the gut of the sperm whale, is thought responsible for the production of the pleasant odour principle of ambergris. However,
Gattefossé, the founder of modern aromatherapy, proposed a fascinating theory: the naturalist Pliny described the ancient Romans as using the pulverized cuttle-bone of Eledone moschata, the musk squid, in perfumery. As this is also part of the whale’s diet, the actual perfume may come from this.
Some consider that ambergris was unknown to the ancients until the time of Alexander the Great, when one of his admirals collected it up and down the coast of the Gulf of Oman and India in 325 B.C., but it is likely that it was known in Africa about 1000 B.C. The Chinese knew ambergris as “lung sien hiang” or “dragon’s spittle fragrance”, which was thought to come from the spittle of sea dragons sleeping on rocks and drooling into the sea!

It was one of the most important exports of Morocco, its cost on a par with gold and black slaves. When they find it today, Moroccans roll it into little balls and let it dissolve in their tea as an aphrodisiac. Casanova was known to praise the invigorating powers of chocolate mousse flavoured with ambergris!

Ambergris is never used as such in perfumes. It is ground to a powder, from which tinctures and extracts are produced. The greater part of a good quality ambergris is soluble in alcohol. Amber, musky, warm, animal, sea, with a tobacco note, the main constituent of ambergris is ambrein, which on exposure to air and light, oxidizes to form, among other odoriferous items, very valuable amber and floral lactones, aldehydes, and ketones. Nowadays, though it is still supplied by some whalers to perfume companies, ambergris has been largely replaced by synthetics and labdanum (Cistus ladaniferus L.).

Musk is secreted by a penile sheath gland of the musk deer (Moschus spp.), an animal about the size of a goat found near the snowline in the Himalayas and Central Asia. It is produced only when the animals are in rut, suggesting that it performs a sexual role, probably as a scent for marking territory. The musk is contained in an internal pouch on the abdomen of the male deer. The musk pod can be extracted without killing the animals, but in fact they are nearly always killed first and, as it is difficult to tell females and males apart, many females are uselessly slaughtered. Musk deer are currently in danger of extinction.

The Chinese, however, are experimenting with musk farms to produce the substance on a commercial basis. The international trade in musk has been estimated at 300/400 kilos per annum, divided equally between perfumery and oriental medicine. It has been known to cost as much as US$60,000 per kilo. In spite of strict controls, the black market is flourishing - a Tibetan who sells two musk pods can live on the proceeds for a year or more.

The gingerbread-like musk grains are found inside the pod-like pouch. The pods are scooped out like scallops from the deer’s abdomen. One musk-pod contains about 15-20g of musk. They are worth many times their weight in gold and are often adulterated by injecting a mixture of blood, dung and ammonia into the pouch. The odour is intense, faecal, oily and clinging. To some people it is unbearable, others find it irresistibly erogenous. It is a very special aphrodisiac, so close chemically to human testosterone that it is possible to detect microscopic traces of it in a perfume. Scientists are now suggesting that we may have special musk receptors in our olfactory cavity. Elephants certainly find it erotic. The art of abhyanga, in which female elephants are massaged with musk ointment to make them more sexually alluring to male elephants, is still practised in India.

Musk tincture and other musk preparations remain some of the most important ingredients in perfumery, not only for the fixative effect of the musk, but mainly for the characteristic effect of the musk tincture. It gives a distinct “lift” or “life” to almost any well balanced perfume base when used in the proper concentration, i.e. just above the level of perception, or at the level where the effect is a perfect “rounding-off and levelling-out” of the perfume. Today, it is used in its natural or synthetic form in about 90 per cent of all fine fragrances.

Perfumers maintain that nothing can capture the finesse of the real thing, but there are now over 80 synthetic types of musk available, and so leave the deer alone!

  
Finally......
Very many thanks to you for another rewarding year, to our staff for a job well done, and to Lotte Rose, Gill Farrer-Halls, Jane Buckle, Melinda Coss, Jennie Harding and John Kennett for a stimulating range of courses.




charles@essentiallyoils.com

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