DIY Mosquito Repellent

It's the change of a season again and the humidity gives mosquitoes a very good environment to linger around human beings, buzzing near their sweat spots like the neck, behind the ears, and (most annoyingly!) behind the knees.

Despite having an air-co bedroom (which I sort of hope to reduce the humidity), I am still surrounded by mosquitoes when I am trying to sleep. Strangely enough they seem to know at what time I enter my REM and just about I am about to get into my deep sleep, they start to buzz in my ear..

I never really liked anti-mosquito spray because most of the time they made me sick. The smell was so bad and my asthma just never got along with the residue of the spray, even after hours later.

So I decided to make my own mosquito repellent, using the skills I learnt from the Smell and Art course I took few years ago. I knew that the local plant "Zodia" (Euodia suaveolens) is famous for being able to repel insects, so I extracted its smell to keep the mosquitoes away. I also tried using the lemon zest -- not only to see whether it can repel insects, but also to soften down the strong smell of the zodia.

Since I will use the extraction in my bedroom, I had to use a safe substance. After a quick reading on the internet, I found that vodka was pretty safe to be used as a household substance, so I got some of my colleague's vodka to be used for my experiment.

Extracting smell with vodka can be rather dangerous if you use a gas stove, so I went to my friend Ocha's place to use her induction stove.

Anyway, here are the ingredients for my mosquito repellent:

• Zodia leaves
• Lemon zest
• Vodka

Method:

• Crush the zodia leaves until they are thoroughly smooth. It doesn't have to be all pulpy, only to make sure that the smells are out.

• Grate the lemon zest.
• Put the crushed leaves and grated lemon zest in two separate plastic zip bags.
• Pour the vodka into the plastic bags. Not too much, only to have the crushed/grated ingredients completely immersed in the vodka.
• Boil a water on a pan.
• After the water is half boiled, put the plastic bags down the water. Do not put the bags on the bottom of the pan, so you either have to hold it with your hand or make a some sort of mechanism that will let you to keep the plastic bags floating and away from the bottom and the side of the pan.
• Do this for around 10-15 minutes. You can also steam the crushed ingredients for around 15-20 minutes.


• In the mean time, prepare the bottle you are going to put your extracted smells.
• Put a funnel on top of the bottle, and put a coffee filter on the funnel. If you have a small funnel, cut the coffee filter in half.
• Cut a small hole on the corner of the zip bag and let the vodka drips on the funnel.
• Keep holding the plastic bag until the final drip.

• Close the bottle tightly.

• Do the same thing for the other ingredient.

On a spray bottle I put:
4 drops of extracted crushed zodia leaves
4 drops of extracted grated lemon zest
6-8 drops of pure vodka

Mix it well and spritz!

Zola Jesus + Blackbird

I have been listening to Zola Jesus lately, and it was awesome to hear that she has collaborated with Blackbird, a Seattle-based design studio to create to create a fragrance and matching incense that encapsulates the world of "Taiga", just like Zola Jesus's album title.

photos from Mute Records', Blackbird's, and Zola Jesus's instagrams.

[link] Nostalgic Noses

One of the reasons why I have been so fascinated by the sense of smell is the power to transport us back in time, having a specific event flashes right in front of me only from one whiff of a scent.

In this article by Scientific American, they scientifically explain how smells are strongly associated with important memories, like fresh-baked cookies and Christmas.

By looking at the structure of the brain, researchers have found that olfactory (smell) information takes a different path through the brain than input from the other senses. Most sensory information has to first go through a region called the thalamus before being interpreted by the other specialized parts of the brain. The thalamus receives input from many sources and then directs it to the right part of the brain. Scientists often consider this the step when a person becomes consciously aware of something.

When it comes to smells, the olfactory information actually passes through the olfactory memory and processing parts of the brain first. That means that we are actually processing the content and memory of a smell before we are consciously figuring out what that smell is.

This smell center of the brain, the olfactory cortex, is also strongly connected with two other areas of the brain: the limbic system and the amygdala. Both of these areas play strong roles in the emotional components of how memories are created and retrieved.

Read the full article: It’s Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas: The Neuroscience of Our Nostalgia

Merry Christmas!

[smell in a song] Goldroom - Fifteen (feat. Chela)

[0:38]

It’s been a long time, wondering why
the summer smells like sin and wonder

[link] Reel Fish Hide From Predators By Smelling Like Coral

Humans might not consider smells as important as sights or sounds, but in animals, they still highly use smells to communicate with each other. And for some animals, hiding your appearance is useless if their predators can still smell them.

photo by atomicshark, CC BY-NC-SA

So if a chameleon or stick insect disguise themselves as leaves or branches, harlequin filefish disguise themselves to smell like coral, according to a paper published by the Royal Society.

One way this could happen is via the diet: odour producing chemicals from the food transferred to the animal that causes their smells to match

You are what you eat, and for filefish or caterpillars, this can be a good advantage.

Read the full article here: Reef fish can even smell like coral as they seek to evade predators

[link] Aromajoin: The Resurrection of Smell-O-Vision?

When I was a little I used to watch an American cooking TV programme called "Wok With Yan" and I remember that at that time I wished that I could smell his cooking as he stirred all those deliciously-looking ingredients in his wok. I even went closer to the TV set and sniff the speakers, imagining that the smells would have been emitted from there.

And it seems that I am not alone.

South Korean entrepreneur Dong Wook Kim is developing a startup technology called "Aromajoin", a smell projection that accompany video. Aromajoin has "aroma shooters", scent cartridges of smell molecules. These cartridges can spray smells for three seconds, and they are up for 45,000 uses.

Aroma Shooters (photo from Tech in Asia)

These Aroma Shooters can also mix up to six different scents, and the smells don't really linger after they're triggered - sounds awesome, right?

So maybe this is the resurrection time for Smell-o-Vision, and one day I can go to the cinemas and sniff scents that are sprayed from the Aroma Shooters strapped to our seats. It said that they can shoot about 60-80 cm range, so they can be used for personal uses too, like telly and installation videos in museums.

I wish the best of luck for Mr. Kim, and I really like his ultimate goal as quoted in this article by Tech in Asia.

Media is only images and sound, maybe slightly tactile like vibration on a smartphone. We want to change media. We want to watch TV with an accompanying smell. We want computers and smartphones to provide aroma feedback.

Read the full articles here:
TV set that emits smells? This startup has what it takes to make it happen
http://www.popsci.com/startup-makes-2550-scent-emitting-televisions

[smell in a song] Marc Almond - The Dancing Marquis

chorus:
So smother me in Ambergris
Make a perfume out of me
Bergamot and Veltiver
Put your face in my bouquet
Inhale me
The dancing marquis