First attempts at smellies!

I have a blessed, treasured, carefully hoarded Day Off without Event Travel, and I'm lashing out to spend most of it on my cosmetics project. I'm inordinately excited about some basic chemistry. :-)

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What I really want to make, though, is the white powder, cyperus powder, for dry shampoo. I've grown very fond of the smell of it, and am hoping to duplicate Ynes' efforts to get something I can continue to make for myself.

I think I was too harsh on Pointer's book about historic beauty; it does contain several recipes that I want to try, and she's clearly got lots of experience. I do want to try distilling perfume, for instance and making soap (a whole art in itself).

Pointer used a medieval pottery alembic, possibly from Trinity Court Potters, for her distilling.

Chatting on the weekend about alembics and the coming reeanctors' fair in November, blue_dormouse mentioned 'Portuguese copper stills', which are apparently a traditional form of distiller, and sure enough, you can find such things on the intawebs under such a description. It's all in the keywords - I'd been looking for alembics and stills, and only found projects to distill homebrew into moonshine on the sly.

According to the Dormouse, if your distilling is for 'educational purposes' it's legal in England - and certainly I'd be educating myself about medieval distillery.

So I'm debating investing in Yet More Extremely Specific Kit, which is a step beyond the double boiler on the stove.

Pros: could distill water for painting, make lots of interesting girly things.

Cons: yet more stuff in the house.