Making an Essence from Eucalyptus?

Question

I live in Australia and am surrounded by various eucalypts. I want to harvest leaves to make an essence to use for cleaning and to make my home smell nice. I tried chopping up leaves and then boiling them down, but the smell is gone by the next day. Any suggestions on how I can properly harvest to oils from the eucalypt leaves?

Answer 1

First, I'm jealous of your access to Eucalyptus!! lol I read about how they extract essential oils for perfumes from I book I got from the library (for the same reason you are asking questions), but it's been a long time ago. However, I just found another site where they tell you how to do it, and the information comes from Australasian College of Herbal Studies. It is copy-written material, so I will send you the the link. The URL is:
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/

When you get there, click on "medicinal herb FAQ". From there, go down to "#4. Processing Herbs". I like all 4 of the ways to get scents, but the first one (Making essential oils) is probably the one you want, but you will probably enjoy reading each one. Some of the techniques, you'll need special equipment for, but many of them you can do with what you have around the house. (Especially the technique called
"Enfleurage" is easy to do. In the perfume book, it said to use this for delicate flowers, plus it's the way they did it before they had all the new technology.)
Have fun!!

Answer 2

Boiling down is less of an answer than is distillation - the steam that was boiling away was what you needed to capture.

Old pressure cooker
length of coiled copper tubing
bottle/small jug

place leaves (tips are best) in pan with small amount of water.
put lid on.
attach copper tube to pan vent hole (where the weights would normally go).
make a support so you end up with one end of tubing fixed to pan and the other over the jug.
boil.
collect small drips (these are what you want).

let cool.
sniff.

ok, the copper tube is the condenser and needs to be long so you get a decent length of cooler. The coil is just to minimize the amount of space it occupies.

what you are doing is collecting the condensate off the walls of the condenser and doing so before it all boils away/evaporates which is what was happening when you were trying to "boil down" before.

This method may be used for many purposes including gathering essential oils, making methyl alcohol (fuel).

Answer 3

I would rub the leaves between parchment paper to break them open to allow the smell to seep then place the bruised leaves in a base oil like almond or olive oil and allow it to steep a few days in the sun and then try using it that way but I haven't done any research this is just how I've made other aroma essences. As far as making the house smell good if you dry them in bundles that should make a nice incense. Or even try steaming them. good luck

Answer 4

In Ooty, there is a process of lpreparing Eucalyptus oil and Ayurvedic preparation is there. You browse -Google - Ayurveda and you get proper answer for your need. Some preservative ingredietnts they suggest.