How To Make Milk Of Roses For Cosmetiques Perfumery
In the perfumery trade, few articles meet with a more ready sale than that class of cosmetiques denominated milks. It has long been known that nearly all the seeds of plants which are called nuts, when decorticated and freed from their pellicle, on being reduced to a pulpy mass, and rubbed with about four times their weight of water, produce fluid which has every analogy to cow's milk.
The milky appearance of these emulsions is due to the minute mechanical division of the oil derived from the nuts being diffused through the water.
All these emulsions possess great chemical interest on account of their rapid decomposition, and the products emanating from their fermentation, especially that made with sweet almonds and pistachios (Pistachia vera).
In the manufacture of various milks for sale, careful manipulation is of the utmost importance, otherwise these emulsions "will not keep;" hence more loss than profit.
To Make Milk of Roses.
Valencia almonds (blanched)= 1/2 lb.
Rose-water= 1 quart.
Alcohol (60 o.p.)= 1/4 pint.
Otto of rose= 1 drachm.
White wax, spermaceti, oil soap, each= 1/2 oz.
Manipulation.
Shave up the soap, and place it in a vessel that can be heated by steam or water-bath; add to it two or three ounces of rose-water.
When the soap is perfectly melted, add the wax and spermaceti, without dividing them more than is necessary to obtain the correct weight; this insures their melting slowly, and allows time for their partial saponification by the fluid soap; occasional stirring is necessary.
While this is going on, blanch the almonds, carefully excluding every particle that is in the least way damaged. Now proceed to beat up the almonds in a scrupulously clean mortar, allowing the rose-water to trickle into the mass by degrees; the runner, as used for the oil in the manufacture of olivine, is very convenient for this purpose.
When the emulsion of almonds is thus finished, it is to be strained, without pressure, through clean washed muslin (new muslin often contains starch, flour, gum, or dextrine).
The previously-formed saponaceous mixture is now to be placed in the mortar, and the ready-formed emulsion in the runner; the soapy compound and the emulsion is then carefully blended together.
As the last of the emulsion runs into the mortar, the spirit, in which the otto of roses has been dissolved, is to take its place, and to be gradually trickled into the other ingredients.
A too sudden addition of the spirit frequently coagulates the milk and causes it to be curdled; as it is, the temperature of the mixture rises, and every means must be taken to keep it down; the constant agitation and cold mortar effecting that object pretty well.
Finally, the now formed milk of roses is to be strained.
The almond residue may be washed with a few ounces of fresh rose-water, in order to prevent any loss in bulk to the whole given quantity.
The newly-formed milk should be placed into a bottle having a tap in it about a quarter of an inch from the bottom.
After standing perfectly quiet for twenty-four hours it is fit to bottle.
All the above precautions being taken, the milk of roses will keep any time without precipitate or creamy supernatation.
These directions apply to all the other forms of milk now given.
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