Category Archives: Formulations and Recipes

How To Make Kitty Litter

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Spending too much on kitty litter?  Here is a cheap and easy method you can use to make your own.

What you will need:

  • Newspaper
  • Water
  • Biodegradable Washing up liquid
  • Baking soda
  • A large bowl or basin

Method

  1. Shred newspaper in a paper shredder.
  2. Soak the paper in warm water mixed with a few squirts of biodegradable washing up liquid. The shredded paper takes on a cooked oatmeal consistency. The paper wont come completely clean, but the water will turn grey.
  3. Drain the water and repeat the soaking process minus the soap.
  4. Sprinkle baking soda liberally on the wet paper. Knead it in to the mixture (you might want to wear gloves to avoid getting ink on your hands).
  5. Squeeze the remaining moisture out until its as dry as you can get it.
  6. Crumble over a screen and leave to dry (it takes a few days).

Once its dry, put about an inch and a half to two inches of the paper crumbles in the litter box, scoop solids daily and change it once a week. It takes about a half an hour to 45 minutes to make a 2-3 week supply of litter.  The baking soda does a good job of controlling odour, and it doesnt track very much.

Brought to you by Mistral Chemicals.

What is Ice Melt?

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The time of year has come again, when we have to deal with the problem of icy pavements.  To make the pavements safe, most people use an ice melting compound, there are many of these on the market, but what is the difference? How does it work? In this article we will explore these issues.

The active ingredient used in ice melt is usually a combination of one or more of the following ingredients:

Rock Salt: This is the most commonly used product, yet it has limited effectiveness in extreme cold and does not melt ice below -9 ºC. Rock salt does not chemically attack concrete, but it is corrosive to rebar and steel. This product is corrosive and can damage lawns, trees and shrubs.

Magnesium Chloride: This is considered to be the best overall ice melting compound.  Magnesium chloride is a liquid in its natural state and has an affinity for returning to a liquid. When solid forms of this compound come into contact with water, they release heat. In practice, once it touches ice or snow, they immediately pick up water to form a strong brine, emit heat to give added de-icing effect, create more water, and form more brine. This process is repeated over and over.  Magnesium chloride is also less corrosive on materials such as metals and concrete than other ice melting compounds. This method is also considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly, of all the common ice melting compounds and is less harmful to plant life as well.

Calcium Chloride: This is similar to magnesium chloride. It is a liquid that is then converted into pellets by removing the water. It can quickly absorb moisture from the atmosphere so it can work at extremely low temperatures, down to -30 ºC. The cost is generally higher for an ice melt that contains calcium chloride. Calcium chloride can also damage nearby lawns and other vegetation.

Urea: This chemical is commonly found in fertilizer, but that does not mean it is safe around vegetation. At high concentrates urea is harmful to plants. Since urea does not contain chlorides it is less corrosive and safer to use on concrete containing rebar and around steel structures.

Ice melting products may also contain sand or clay additive to help with traction.

How the products work

All de-icers basically work the same. De-icers work by attracting moisture to form a liquid brine to generate heat to melt the ice. The product must reach the pavement to become effective. Once on the pavement this brine can spread out on the ice and break its bond with the pavement. As the ice is loosened it can be easily shovelled away.

The rate of melting depends on how fast the specific chemical reacts to the existing moisture. Ice melting products work best if applied before snow or ice accumulates. Spread the ice melt thinly over the surface, in very cold weather it may be helpful to add some water to the product to begin the melting process as it is the chemical solution of the product and water that actually does the work.

Determining product effectiveness

One of the first things to look at is the range of temperatures that a product will work in a reasonable time period, generally 15 to 20 minutes. Calcium chloride works in the coldest temperatures, and magnesium chloride and rock salt also rank high in this category.

The ice melt must dissolve into a solution quickly to be effective. Since calcium chloride and magnesium chloride are liquids in their natural states they return to a liquid quickly. Then when these chemicals come in contact with water a reaction is caused that gives off heat to melt ice and snow. Overall, magnesium and calcium chloride rank the highest in effectiveness based on speed.

No matter which ice melt you decide to use keep the following tips in mind:

  • Don’t over apply the chemical.
  • Always follow the instructions on the label.
  • Don’t try to melt everything. Before applying ice melt, make sure any snow accumulation has been shovelled or brushed off.
  • Wear gloves when applying ice melt. The chemicals in some products can irritate skin.
  • Make sure the container is tightly sealed when storing the product. Ice melt products can absorb moisture from the air and harden.
  • Don’t use ice melt on new concrete that has not fully cured.
  • All products will have some impact on the environment. If you suspect plants have been damaged from runoff (look for stunted growth, portions of the plant dying back, browning of foliage), flush the area with plenty of water in the spring.

 

Rust Removal Methods

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Rust stains can cause a number of problems for home and business owners because of their destructive tendencies. Rust stains are often a shade of reddish brown or dark red. Inside pipes, rust can create rusty water stains wherever water flows. While rust stains can be bothersome, they can be removed with a little hard work and the help of a rust remover. There are a number of rust remover products available on the market, but several common household items can also be used to battle rust stains. These household items can be used individually or combined to create effective, safe rust remover products.

Cream of tartar, hydrogen peroxide 3%, and borax can be combined to create a homemade rust remover paste. To make this rust remover, a teaspoon of cream of tarter and a quarter cup of borax should be mixed with enough hydrogen peroxide to make a thick paste. The paste should be rubbed onto the rust spot and allowed to stand for 30 minutes. Then, the rust stain should be wiped away with a damp sponge. If the stain remains, the entire process should be repeated.

Another homemade rust remover solution is a cup of borax mixed with the juice from one lemon. This mixture makes a rust remover paste that can be applied directly to the stain. It should sit for twenty to thirty minutes and then be scrubbed clean. It might take a couple applications for this rust remover to be successful, but this concoction is safe for many surfaces, as well as safe for pets and children.

Oxalic acid is often recommended as a good product for removing rust stains. Oxalic acid is mildly toxic but not as abrasive as other commercial products. Before you try a harsher chemical, try removing rust stains with oxalic acid. Be sure to wear gloves and safety glasses when using this method.

What you will need

  • Dishwashing liquid
  • Bucket
  • Soft or medium-bristled brush
  • Oxalic acid

Instructions

  1. Pour 1/2 cup dishwashing liquid into a bucket. Fill the remainder of the bucket with cool water.
  2. Wash the rust-stained area with the dishwashing liquid. Use a soft- to medium-bristled scrub brush (depending on surface type) to thoroughly clean the area. Rinse the dishwashing liquid thoroughly with cool water.
  3. Pour one pound of oxalic acid into a gallon bucket. Fill the remainder of the bucket with cool water.
  4. Apply the oxalic acid to the rust stain. If the rust stain is on concrete, use a mop. If the rust stain is on another surface, use a sponge to apply the oxalic acid to the stain.
  5. Scrub the stain with a soft- to medium-bristled brush (depending on surface type) to lift the stain. Rinse the area thoroughly with cool water.

 

How To Make Your Own Reed Diffusers

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Reed diffusers have become very popular, and it’s not surprising that many people want to make their own using essential oils. Most store-bought reed diffusers use synthetic fragrances, but making your own natural reed diffuser oil with essential oils is simple. This article outlines how.

What You Need to Make Your Own Reed Diffuser

Decide on a recipe and calculate how much of each ingredient, glass bottles (and what sizes), and how many diffuser reed sticks you’ll need. Before you begin, make sure you have everything you need.

Ingredients and Supplies You Need to Make a Reed Diffuser:

Essential oil(s) (You also may use fragrance oils.)
Dipropylene glycol, fragrance grade
Perfumer’s alcohol (You may or may not need this.)
Diffuser reeds (Reeds should be a few inches taller than the bottle.)
Narrow neck glass bottle (Do not use plastic or metal containers.)

How to Make a Reed Diffuser

1. Add your reed diffuser oil to the glass bottle (Instructions on how to make the oil is detailed below). Don’t fill the bottle completely full. There must be enough space so that when you put in the diffuser reeds the liquid doesn’t spill over the top.

2. Put the cap on the bottle and mix by gently turning the bottle upside down a few times.

3. Remove the cap and insert the diffuser reeds, and fan them out. It may take several hours for the oil to wick all the way up the reeds and diffuse the scent into the room. You can “refresh” your reed diffuser by flipping over the reed sticks every few weeks.

Reed Diffuser Oil Ingredients:

There are three basic components of natural reed diffuser oils:

1. Essential oils, which provide the fragrance. You also may use synthetic fragrance oils.
2. Reed diffuser oil base, Dipropylene glycol (fragrance grade). The base dilutes the essential oil or fragrance oil, and helps the reed diffuser oil wick up the reeds.

3. Perfumer’s alcohol, which thins the diffuser oil to allow better wicking.

Making Your Fragrance

Your imagination is nearly your only limit when it comes to which essential oils to use in your reed diffuser oil. Use single oil or a blend. But note that thick or heavy essential oils do not work well in reed diffuser oil blends.

If you want a reed diffuser oil that is as strongly fragrant as store-bought reed diffusers, you may need to use synthetic fragrance oil instead of essential oil.

Make Reed Diffuser Oils

Make your reed diffuser oil with about 30% to 40% essential oil and about 60% to 70% dipropylene glycol or reed diffuser base oil. Slightly more or slightly less of either ingredient should work, too. If the diffuser oil is too thick (viscous) and doesn’t absorb up the reeds well, you can add 5% or 10% perfumer’s alcohol to make your formula more wickable.

How To Make Your Own Perfume

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What you will need:

  • Distilled water
  • Perfumer’s alcohol
  • Coffee filters
  • Strainer
  • Coloured glass bottles with stoppers
  • Dropper
  • Funnel
  • Wooden spoon
  • Non-metal bowl
  • Essential oils (see recipes below)

Instructions

1.  Pour the alcohol into your bowl. Add the essential oils one drop at a time into the alcohol in the bowl, stirring slowly after each addition. Make sure that you stir slowly, but long enough to completely disperse the oils

2.  Allow the blend of oils and alcohol to stand undisturbed for 48 hours

3.  Add the distilled water. Stir it slowly until it is completely dispersed.

4.  Place the mixture in a cool, dark place where it won’t be disturbed for at least three weeks. This will allow the perfume to mature.

5.  Filter the resulting pure perfume through a coffee filter to remove any sediment that may have formed. Bottle your perfume into glass bottles with a stopper. Enjoy it as you would any commercial perfume.

Recipes

Here are a few recipes for you to try. These will help to start you off, but don’t be afraid to experiment and tweak them as you see necessary, or if you are feeling adventurous you could try creating your own blend.  If you have any recipes of your own please feel free to post them in a comment.

Rain Shower

5 drops Bergamot
3 drops Sandalwood
5 drops Cassis
1 cup distilled water
5 teaspoons of perfumer’s alcohol

English Country Garden

5 drops Valerian
5 drops Chamomile
3 drops Lavender
1 cup distilled water
5 teaspoons perfumer’s alcohol

Amaze Perfume

2 cups distilled water
3 tablespoons perfumers alcohol
5 drops hypericum perforatum essential oil (St. John’s wort)
10 drops cypress essential/fragrance oil
10 drops rosemary essential/fragrance oil

Citrus grove
5 tsp perfumers alcohol
1/2 tsp distilled water
15 drops lemon oil
10 drops bergamot oil
10 drops bitter-orange oil
5 drops grapefruit oil
5 drops lemongrass oil
4 drops benzoin oil
2 drops cedarwood oil

Tips & Warnings

  • Don’t be afraid to experiment with a fragrance recipe. Learning how to make your own fragrances is as much about experimentation as about following recipes. Just keep a notebook of everything you do so that if you do discover how to make the perfect perfume, you can duplicate the results. Remember that one less or one more drop of an essential oil can change the fragrance of a perfume entirely.
  • Be sure to test the ingredients by placing a single drop of each on a discreet area of skin to check for any adverse reactions. If redness or irritation ensues after 24 hours, reformulate the ingredients to suit you.
  • Be sure to use coloured glass bottles, this is because the coloured bottle serves the dual purpose of both looking attractive and helping to shield the contents of the bottle from UV light that can eventually cause a fragrance to deteriorate. The perfumer’s alcohol acts as a preservative/fixative but coloured bottles add just one more layer of protection.

Improve the quality of your homemade perfumes

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Using these perfumery methods will help you take your homemade fragrances to a more professional level. In fact, if you use these techniques, you could actually sell your end result! The basic professional perfume making process is the same as the amateur perfuming process, but the materials are not.

  • Use pure ethanol or perfumer’s alcohol instead of vodka. Perfumer’s alcohol makes a great solvent for even the most resinous oils. It is what all commercial perfumes are made with, except some boutique brands that make roll-on scented oil or solid perfume.
  • Use different fragrance materials, not only essential oils. There are many more fragrance materials available other than essential oils. If you only use essential oils, you limit your perfume blending possibilities. It’s like wanting to paint a mural, but only having red and yellow paint.
  • In addition to essential oils, there are also absolutes, fragrance oils, and isolated aroma chemicals, all supplying scents that can’t be produced with essential oils.

Absolutes are stronger and smell more like the plant than essential oils, and are used extensively in perfumery. Some plants are too delicate to be pressed or steam-distilled; making an essential oil out of them is impossible. Jasmine is one of these plants. The absolutes are expensive, but a little goes a long way. They are much more concentrated than essential oils.

Fragrance oils, despite what you may have heard, aren’t merely cheap substitutes for essential oils. They are a completely different spectrum of scent, containing a combination of absolutes, essential oils, and synthetic aroma chemicals. Fragrance oils give you access to scents that you can’t get naturally, for example strawberry, peach, and watermelon.

Fragrance oils also have the benefit of being skin-safe (as long as you get cosmetic grade.) If you want to create an entire line of perfume and bath and body products in a favourite scent, you can use the same skin-safe fragrance oil to scent all of them.

Aroma chemicals are isolated fragrance molecules that are either synthetically produced or refined from plant sources. For example, the compound vanillin is what gives vanilla its characteristic odour and flavour. Artificial vanilla flavour is usually pure synthetic vanillin. Natural vanilla has many more compounds than just vanillin, which is why it tastes better!

Strawberry fragrance oil, one of the most sought-after scents in the cosmetic and fragrance industry, is a combination of strawberry aldehyde (Ethyl methylphenylglycidate) and other compounds to round out the scent.

Using Fixitives

Use fixatives in your perfume. If you’ve experimented with essential oils such as mint and bergamot, you’ve probably noticed that they disappear within an hour. This is because they evaporate quickly, aided by the heat of your skin.

Fixatives are a way to help make fragrances last longer. They are natural or synthetic substances that enhance scent and slow down the evaporation of scents that tend to disappear. Why do fixatives work? They are very high in scent molecule count, often with no distinct odour of their own. They just blend with the key fragrance and make it seem stronger.

For example, musk, a traditional fixative, can enhance the scent and make its perceived strength stronger. It only takes a small amount for a big effect – with effective use of musk, you won’t smell it, but the entire perfume will last longer and smell stronger. (Musks have been synthetic since the 1970s due to cruelty and endangerment laws.)

Plant fixatives include many resinous, sticky oils and absolutes like benzoin, frankincense, vetiver, and orris. They often have an earthy scent that “deepens” a blend. With a little experience, you’ll have a good idea of what fixatives can enhance and give subtle character to your perfumes.

As you can probably tell, using professional methods are not much more difficult than what you may have tried already. However, I must say that the techniques given here are more expensive than the home-brewed. They require the use of specialized, more costly materials.

Using perfumer’s alcohol and absolutes are only for people who are somewhat serious about perfume, but it is a fun, fascinating activity. It is definitely possible to get started cost-effectively; Many botanical absolute suppliers have samples that you can use at first.

It’s also a good idea to try absolute dilutions before going for the real thing. Dilutions will help you work with the absolute without becoming overwhelmed by the un-concentrated fragrance, and they are also less expensive. Most dilutions are 3% – 5% absolute in jojoba oil, similar in strength to essential oils.

Buy Perfumer’s Alcohol

How to Make A Boric Acid Solution for Eye Discomfort

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Things You’ll Need:

  • 1 tsp. boric acid powder
  • 8 oz. water
  • Small pot
  • Bowl
  • Cotton balls

Instructions
1.  Bring 8 oz. of water to a boil in a small pot.

2.  Add the boric acid powder and mix thoroughly.

3.  Remove the pot from the heat and allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

4.  Measure out 1/4 cup of the solution and transfer it to a small bowl. Set some cotton balls in it.

5.  Squeeze the cotton ball over top of your eye to distribute some of the solution to the eye. You can also use the cotton ball to wipe away any dirt or debris that is causing discomfort.

6.  Use 1/4 cup of solution for the second eye the same way you did the first. You will still have half a cup of solution left for use later on in the day.

Tips & Warnings

  • If you have an eye wash cup, use that instead of the cotton balls.
  • Never use boric acid that is meant for washing your clothes. It will harm your eyes.  Instead use BP/USP grade Boric Acid.

How to Make Ear Wash for Dogs

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Things You will Need:

Instructions

1.  Mix 1 part white vinegar to 2 parts water for general cleaning. If the dog has an active infection, mix the witch hazel, gentian violet, and boric acidpowder and use this as the wash.

2.  Shake the solution well before each use.

3.  Apply the wash outdoors or in a bathroom. Washing dog’s ears can get messy, and gentian violet can stain.

4.  Dip a clean cotton ball into the wash, squeeze out the excess liquid and apply to the ear. At this point, the dog will probably shake his head to get rid of the excess liquid in his ear. This is okay.

5.  Dip the end of a cotton swab into the solution. Apply the swab very carefully to the narrow parts of the ear, but don’t go in too far.

6.  Repeat this cleaning ritual every day for active infections, and once a month for general cleaning.

Tips & Warnings

  • If you can’t see the end of the swab anymore, you’ve inserted the cotton swab too far into the dog’s ear.
  • Consistently handle your dog’s ears while petting it to get it used to you touching his ears. This will make the cleaning process much easier.
  • If you notice any abnormal changes, inflammation, discharge, strong odor, or sensitivity in your dog’s ears, go to the veterinarian. Some ear infections won’t respond to ear wash, and they need to be treated as soon as possible to avoid long-term side effects.

How to Store Eggs in Waterglass

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Believe it or not, you can actually store eggs for up to a year. While this may not be an issue for most people who pick up their eggs at their local shop, people who keep chickens very often cannot keep up with the volume of eggs their brood produces. Following the steps described below and you can store 6 to 8 dozen eggs for up to a full year.

You will need:

  • 1 pint of Sodium Silicate (Waterglass)
  • 9 pints of water, preferably rain water as it has less impurities then tap water
  • Food grade stone crock or a large screw cap glass jar

Instructions

  1. Sterilize the inside of your container with boiling water. Discard the water.
  2. Mix 1 pint of sodium silicate with 9 pints of boiled, cooled water in your container. This should be enough to preserve six to eight dozen eggs.
  3. Select fresh eggs free from any cracks. Do not wash them prior to storing them (an egg is coated with a light layer of a natural sealing agent called “bloom”. Washing them removes this natural protective coating leaving the eggs more subject to aging and attack by bacteria in the air).
  4. Add eggs to the sodium silicate mixture. Make sure the eggs are at least a couple inches below the sodium silicate at all times.
  5. Cover the container with a lid or cheese cloth when you cannot fit in anymore eggs. Place the container in a cool, dry place and the eggs will store for nine to twelve months.

Tips

  • Wash the eggs thoroughly before using them.
  • Smell the eggs as you crack the shells in case any have gone off. Some eggs may have had undetectable hairline cracks, which let bacteria in before you preserved them.
  • If you plan to boil the eggs, make a pinhole in one end to release pressure as the waterglass seals the pores during storage.
  • As you use the eggs throughout the winter, top off the container with cooled boiled water to replace evaporated sodium silicate mixture.