I tried out the Victorian Essence of Violets which is an 1840s beauty recipe: an alcohol scented with orris root powder.
Ingredients:
- 1 pint alcohol
- 4 oz orris root powder
Mix and let the solution macerate for some days. As the Victorian recipe doesn’t say which alcohol to use, I used 75% ethanol. Even after one day, the alcohol has a strong scent of violets (or rather orris root powder). The Victorian recipe doesn’t state if the tincture should be strained or used like that. I don’t know yet for what I’ll use the essence of violets – maybe to scent a Victorian beauty product. Do you have a suggestion?
Maybe it’ll work as facial toner, like alcohol based witch hazel extract?
Thanks for your suggestion, Charm! 🙂
As a child (in ‘70s Britain) violet scented things were strongly correlated with elderly women, so I have always assumed that it was a very popular scent decades before.