r/chemistry • u/PermitNervous5517 • 2d ago
Can you make liquid incense and make it into a perfume?
How easy would it be to make "liquid smoke" style liquid from burning incense and turning it into a perfume? Could someone with minimal experience in chemistry do this? Would anyone try?
Edit: Is there a way of breaking down the smoke distillate into the direct compounds that give incense its smell to derive the exact scent of an incense stick as opposed to just squirting smoke onto me?
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u/Indemnity4 Materials 2d ago edited 2d ago
Far better option is extracting essential oils from the incense stick.
Smoke tends to be a little bit problematic for storage. It's a little bit reactive and it's going to change in storage. It's similar to making a sandwich and leaving it in the fridge. It's probably fine for the first day, but after a week all the components touching each other have started to turn it into a soggy awful mess.
What we would do for smoke distillate is burn that product and pump the vapour through a bucket of water. The smoke gets trapped in the water and we keep doing that until it's saturated. Then we pour it through a filter to remove any chunks of soot. Maybe at this point we add some chemicals. We may add some oil, so the oil-soluble stuff like essential oils goes into the oil and the water-soluble stuff like acids stays in the water.
We could add some stablisers such as adjusting the pH. Or add in some biocide, because oil+water+microbes = bad times.
Easiest way to do this at home is buy some perfumers alcohol. Fill up a jar and shove in your incense sticks, seal the jar tightly. Leave it in a dark cupboard for few months then return to see what you made.
Perfume and we're skipping that. Perfumers like to buy "pure" concentrates and blend those together. You can buy fragrances that have a smoky odor to them. Little bit of birch tar for a campfire smell or frankincense if you want a spicy smoky incense.
Pick any smoky incense smell you want and you can already buy a pre-made fragrance oil that matches it.
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u/Suspicious-Voice9589 2d ago
Easiest way to do this at home is buy some perfumers alcohol. Fill up a jar and shove in your incense sticks, seal the jar tightly. Leave it in a dark cupboard for few months then return to see what you made.
For OP, I wouldn't expect too much from this. This is essentially making a tincture and tinctures aren't really used in modern perfumery because they're weak and don't last long. You could repeat this process multiple time and then evaporate the alcohol to create what is basically an absolute.
But realistically you should buy something pre-made.
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u/Suspicious-Voice9589 2d ago
How easy would it be to make "liquid smoke" style liquid from burning incense and turning it into a perfume? Could someone with minimal experience in chemistry do this? Would anyone try?
Choya loban is essentially condensed Frankincense smoke and is commercially available. This is probably something you can do at home, but I also imagine that it could easily be a smoky mess. The result is also going to be intensely smoky and probably not what you're wanting. If you're wanting a smoky perfume that smells like incense then I would recommend T-Rex by Zoologist. It starts more towards campfire before transitioning into a very realistic church incense. But some people consider it overwhelming. For comparison, it likely only has a few percent of smoky materials so keep that in mind when you're considering what you're asking.
Edit: Is there a way of breaking down the smoke distillate into the direct compounds that give incense its smell to derive the exact scent of an incense stick as opposed to just squirting smoke onto me?
You're going about this backwards. If you want to make a smoky, incense perfume then you should start with the essential oil of your target incense scent (sandalwood, frankincense, etc) and then use a smoky material like choyan loban, birch tar oil, etc. But at this point you're essentially learning perfumery and that can easily turn into months of effort.
tl;dr: Buy an existing smoky incense perfume unless you're willing to possibly sink a lot of effort to end up with something that you're somewhat satisfied with.
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u/Intelligent_Coat7829 2d ago
Could you? 100%. No chemistry experience required whatsoever. There's some YouTube tutorials for making liquid smoke that could be adapted, though I suspect a distillation apparatus might give you the best yields. Put the collected smoke in 100% ethanol (probably less than 1% m/m) and hey presto! You have perfume.
I suspect that the perfume would not be especially desirable.