HERB - Linen Water

[Jenne Heise]

> > I received this rather unusual request via my web site.  I have been asked
> a
> > recipe for Linen water.  It is apparently something you put in your iron
> > when ironing linen (for steam) to make it smell pleasant.  Anyone has any
> > ideas?
> >

Jeanne Rose (_Herbs & Things: Jeanne Rose's Herbal_) quotes a 'Sweet Water
for Perfuming Clothes' which she says is a sixteenth-century recipe:

     "To 1 qt. rose water, add the following: 1/2 oz. lavender, 2 oz.
orris, 1/2 oz. jasmine flowers, 1 t. musk, a pinch of ambergris and civet,
5 drops of clove oil. Put it all into a glass jar, fasten down the lid,
and place it in a sunny window for 10 days. Then strain and set aside the
liquid for use."

>From Bulleins Bulwarke, 1562 (quoted by Jacqueline Heriteau, in Potpourris
and other Fragrant Delights): 
Sixteenth-Century Sweet Water for Linens 

     Three pounds of Rose water, cloves, cinnamon, Sauders [sandalwood], 2
handful of the flowers of Lavender, lette it stand a moneth to still in
the sonne, well closed in a glasse; Then destill it in Balneo Marial. It
is marvellous pleasant in savour, a water of wondrous swetenes, for the
bedde, whereby the whole place, shall have a most pleasaunt scent.

>From Hugh Platt's Delights for Ladies, 1594 (quoted by Jacqueline
Heriteau, in Potpourris and other Fragrant Delights) 

     To make a special sweet water to perfume clothes in the folding being
washed. Take a quart of Damaske-Rose-Water and put it into a glasse, put
unto it a handful of Lavender Flowers, two ounces of Orris, a dram of
Muske, the weight of four pence of Amber-greece [ambergris], as much
Civet, foure drops of Oyle of Clove, stop this close, and set it in the
Sunne a fortnight: put one spoonfull of this Water into a bason of common
water and put it inot a a glasse and so sprinkle your clothes therewith in
your folding: the dregs, left in the bottome (when the water is spent)
will make as much more, if you keepe them, and put fresh Rose water to it.

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
   "My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own"

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