by Mary BT
When I was in 4th or 5th grade, the girl across the street (whom I shall call SC because her name is recognizable and I haven’t seen her in years so I’m not sure if she’d appreciate being identified as a participant in this fiasco) and I decided we wanted to make perfume. Why? Well, that’s obvious. I had about 4 zillion empty plastic film canisters and I needed something to put in them. Duh.
The first thing we did was walk around my parents’ yard looking for something that smelled great. Roses? Nah. Too pretty. Grass? Nah. Too earthy. Marigolds? YES! They were juuuuust right. So we picked the marigolds and took them into the kitchen. SC said (and I remember this statement as if it were yesterday), “The first ingredient in perfume is alcohol.” Therefore our next task was to go to the bathroom to find some rubbing alcohol. Only there wasn’t any. There was, however, lemon scented nail polish remover. We figured it would work. Plus, it had the added bonus of a fresh lemon scent.
Our next plan of action was to extract the scent from the marigolds. What better way to extract scent than by heating up our concoction?
Sooooo…we heated up one of my mother’s sauce pans and proceeded to pour the nail polish remover in it. The whole bottle.
On an unrelated note, did you know that nail polish remover is very very flammable? I would even go so far as to say “highly flammable”. As you can imagine, the heated nail polish remover sprang up into a geyser-like shower and then fell back in the pan.
SC and I shrugged our shoulders then added the marigolds. Ahhhh, the lovely scent of marigolds mixed with lemon nail polish remover. We really should have marketed the stuff.
Looking back on it, perhaps this failure could be classified as a success of some sort. After all, we managed to not burn down the house in our pursuit of olfactory greatness.
oh dear god, my eyes are tearing up from laughing so hard. Very well written!
<3,
JuliaD
http://www.homemadehilarity.blogspot.com
Did your parents ever find out? I too would consider this a non-fail, since the fire department was not involved. You young ladies could have lost some eyebrows or worse :-)
Oh! The things we do when we are little! (Just a side note, the mily stuff in hydrangea leaves does NOT do the same thing as aloe vera)
My eyes are tearing up that was so well written! Great job!
I tried making a floral arrangement out of day lillies when I was 8. I thought they might smell better if I doused them in some of my dad’s cologne. I wondered why my mom didn’t keep my bouquet out longer.
This sounds like something I would’ve done. After all, I am the genius who microwaved a TV remote. *L*
*LOL*! I’m a perfumer now, and I do have a very consistent record with accidental ignition, although it’s only been perfume-related once in recent years. I don’t think I was as enterprising as you were, but now I’m intrigued as to what I might do with my marigolds this year!
Your post brought back memories of youthful hijinks. My brother and I tried to make rootbeer out of Sassafrass tree roots by boiling them and adding sugar. It will come as no surprise that the results were might unpleasant tasting.
LOL!! When I was about the same age my friend Jima and I did the same thing. Except we only had hibiscus flowers. We mushed them up in a sort of mortar and pestle style with a rock and bowl. We did not have alcohol, but we had the lemon scented nail poilsh remover.
The hibiscus mash reacted with the acetone and became a gloppy mess. We never proceeded to the “heat it up” part.
Dd and I just tried this! (It was a recipe in a fairy book.)
Let’s just say rubbing alcohol with peonies doesn’t work any better.
At least we didn’t ignite anything. :)
That is soooo funny. I’m wiping the tears from my eyes because I laughed so hard.
Hilarious!! Reminded me, initially, of when I was in third grade and wanted to make my own homemade potpourri sachets for Mother’s Day. Yep, I dried marigolds, marigolds only. It was the one gift my mom couldn’t even bring herself to use, it smelled, so… not good.
you are my hero!! brought tears to my eyes laughing :)