Do you enjoy making things from the flowers and herbs that grow around you?
Yes.
That’s the question that prompted me to write this post. Found this question from the article I’ve seen from Homemade Herbal Shampoo of The Nerdy Farm Wife a week after I attempted to make flower-infused oil
A fragrant underrated flower
The flower I chose to make an infused oil is Amazon Lily. This flower may not be so popular and its health benefits are seemed to be unknown. Even when I Googled it, search results did not show me any articles that talk about its health benefits as of the moment of writing. It does however show me tips on how to grow this kind of flower and the healthy benefits of Lily flowers but not specifically the variant Amazon Lily. I opted to use this flower simply because of its scent. I previously ignore this plant because it seldom produces flowers. I didn’t even know that it does produce flowers. When I found out it does have flowers, I still ignored it. My interest in Amazon Lily only started when I found out it has an inviting mild floral scent.
Concerning my observation about the flower’s scent, I’ve noticed that it does change. I was able to notice the changes since when our Amazon Lily plant has a flower, I go to our side yard to enjoy its scent. This flower smells fresh, sweet, and floral which could make you want to keep on smelling it. Since its scent is not too strong, you have to really put your nose close to the flower so you can smell it.
On the first day it blooms, it smells somewhat sweet and floral. On the second and succeeding days, it smells more floral than sweet. As days pass by you’d notice that the touch of sweet scent fades.
The flower of Amazon Lily only lasts for a few days. In one stem, four flowers can bloom but not at the same time. One flower would bloom today, then the second would bloom the next day or after two days, and so on. When one flower withers, another flower would bloom. It is also not an all-year flowering plant. Our plant seldom has flowers, so when it has flowers I wanted to preserve it.
The inspiration of attempting to make a flower-infused oil only came up to me because I want to keep on enjoying its scent but I can’t because its flower doesn’t t last for a long time. Hence I need to wait until a flower blooms again which by the way is uncertain when and whether it will still produce flowers.
Making a flower-infused oil despite limitations
When I attempted to make a flower-infused oil I only have a few Amazon lily flowers. To be exact I only have one newly bloomed flower plus two almost withered flowers. I know that almost-withered flowers should not be included because their scent is not that strong anymore, or in some cases, the flower has totally lost its scent.
I know that one freshly bloomed flower with a mild sweet floral scent isn’t enough, but since I really wanted to preserve its scent and see if my attempt of preserving its odor would be successful, I still pursued and picked the flowers.
During the time I experienced, I didn’t have unscented or the usual carrier oil to use. We only have olive oil, palm oil, and organic virgin coconut oil. I initially wanted to use olive oil because it’s good for the skin, but it has a certain scent and it’s being used for our food, so I opted to use the organic VCO which I use for diluting my essential oils. Although organic virgin coconut oil has a distinct smell too, I still used it because I don’t have any other available oils to use.
Flower-infused oil experiment daily development
Here is the development:
- First day, the scent of Amazon lily is still apparent.
- On the second day, the mixture became somewhat slimy, and the scent of the VCO overpowers the scent of the flower.
- On the following day, you cannot trace the scent of Amazon lily anymore but just VCO. Plus, it doesn’t smell so nice. I did not open it on the fourth and fifth days, because I was disappointed and was more focused on studying other things.
- On the sixth day, I just decided to throw it because I know whatever I do, it wouldn’t smell nice. But before I throw it, I smelled it again. And guess what?! The smell didn’t change, it became worst actually.
To make the long story short…
Result: Epic fail
Lesson learned from an epic-fail flower-infused oil experiment
- Having enough flowers is important
- Using the right oil is a must. I have to use unscented oil. Using oils with a strong odor will overpower the natural scent of the flower, especially if the flower has a mild scent.
Even though it didn’t turn out the way I want it, it’s okay..the experiment was still worth trying. At least, I learned two things, and have seen and understood how the scent and texture change on the flower and oil each day.
I hope you can too try it for yourself….but done better than mine..
Live, laugh, love 💋❤
Oil Therapy 