Monoi

Moving on from the incense and hand-milled soap, now I'm playing around with infusing and perfuming monoi oil. It's great for the skin and hair, and ideal for massage. In fact our whole family loves giving and receiving massages, big and small, here Heimana is preparing to give Daddy a quick back rub! She just can't get enough of being massaged and even before she's out of the bath-tub she's pointing at the monoi bottle saying 'maaaoo' (her best attempt at maro, which means massage in tahitian).

The timing is perfect for my experimentation, the sun is there and the flowers are all out, so it's a great time to start infusing monoi.

 here's our ylang-ylang, there's also a mountain of plumeria....

I've been letting my imagination run wild, I've tried coconut flowers and lemon rinds, Rurutu coffee grinds and of course the classics like tahitian jasmin, vanilla and sandalwood, pretty much all the spices I have on the shelf, star anise, clove, cardamon and cinnamon all give lovely complex scents. I'm very happy with a lot of the results and am now playing at blending my own fragrances (today's success is a Rose-sandalwood-vanilla blend) I haven't gone as far as making my own essential oils yet......but I am thinking about it and have already been playing around with floral waters, though it's still early days yet......