Clearly natural aloe, lemon balm, pepermint leaf experiment

My girlfriend lives in the country and her parents grow all kinds of random stuff that just takes over. I grabbed a handful of Lemon Balm which smells a lot like Lemon head candy, and peppermint leaves. made a 1/3 bar of soap with it in it, here are the results! just takes 10 seconds to melt in the microwave.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_IMG_0486.jpghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_IMG_0488.jpghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_IMG_0487.jpghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_IMG_0489.jpghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_IMG_0490.jpgLooks so good you can eat it!

Ok so I used the soap in the shower with a Lufa to try and use it kinda like a face wash. worked pretty well, the scent I got from the leaf oils smells pretty good, and is great for giving you a nice summer smell in the shower to wake you up. Downside is that the leaves tend to make the soap kinda mushy once you get down to mainly just leaves.

So my next idea is to take the leaves, try to extract their oils by either blending or pressing them, then putting though a coffee filter. adding a few leaf in only for decoration.

My next experiment is going to consist of clearly natural, the above, a drop of peppermint oil and some clay. The soap is awesome for shaving, and the clay might take it a level yet to behold!

Sounds like a great experiment! I think for the extraction of the oils you're going to have to use something like alcohol to extract just the oil out. Granted, you could press the heck out of 300 pounds of leaves to get some oil, but I think the oil might be worth a try. Similar to the method used in bay rum.

your right, i was thinking about it, and I think I'm mainly just going to get lemon balm and peppermint water soup if i blend it and filter it. I'm going to do some research on how to extract the oils.

The butane extraction method of making oil is based on supercritical fluid extraction. It uses totally over-the-counter butane gas as the extraction solvent, and requires nothing even remotely suspicious or difficult to purchase. (Unrefined lighter gas can)

Butane and carbon dioxide (perhaps other solvent/gas combinations with similar ultra-low-boiling properties) selectively solvate the desirable fraction of oils, pulling out only a beautiful amber honey oil and leaving the undesirable vegetative oils, waxes, chlorophyll, etc. behind in the plant matter.

The most important thing to remember is to work outdoors away from people, animals, and anything else that might be injured or catch fire if the butane comes into contact with an ignition source. Butane is highly flammable, work away from anything that might produce a spark. Make sure you are the only victim, if anything goes wrong.

Materials Needed:
Butane (2 Cans)
Coffee filter
Leaves, 7 grams to 28 grams
Pipe, about 1.75 inch outer diameter, 12 inches long
Pyrex baking dish
Two end caps for the pipe

Put a piece of coffee filter paper in one cap end. Make 4 or 5 small holes in the cap end. Make a hole in the other cap end the same size as the snout of the butane can.

Place the leaves in the tube - not too compact. Send the butane through the tube. Collect the oil onto water in a bowl. Skim off the top layer and thats your oil.