[MontavonM]

I am interested in extracting the oil from different leaves to make my own cover scent for deer hunting. I would think it should be possible to extract the oils from the plants/fruits by use of a non-polar solvent followed by some type of evaporation of the solvent? If so, can any common non-polar solvent be used... such as haxane, ether, toluene or ethyl acetate? Also, I assume this process would either by more efficient or less timely if the leaves/nuts were crushed/ground? Thanks!

[Arkcon]

You can extract some scents for perfumery (that is what you're doing, hunting motive notwithstanding) by extracting the way perfumers do -- you can use absolute ethanol to extract many scents compounds.  You could also try extracting the scent with fats, this is a method to extract the most scent from plant parts.  Both ethanol and fat are easier for the home user to get, and safer too.  As an aside, specifically, what plants will you be extracting to cover your scent?  As I recall, the typical mask scent is fox (or other carnivore) urine, and the typical attractant scent is doe in heat urine. Both of which are produced by the respective manufacturers in ready to apply form already.

[MontavonM]

I figured ethanol would be a good choice. I also read where vodka could be used and the oil could be frozen off. Fox scent is often used, but my aim is to replicate a plant based cover scent (I have hunted for years and found that 'fresh earth' and 'acorn' scent are best at masking the human scent, at least to deer anyways). Basically I had planned on trying to extract the oil from oak leaves, possibly acorns, and a combination of other leaves such as poplar, maple, hickory, sycamore, walnut, and maybe some field grass also. Apologies for posting in the wrong section.

[Arkcon]

The smell of fresh earth comes from the spores of earth living fungi.  I've cultured them in the laboratory, and the smell off the petri dish is exactly like crawling around under grandma's porch.  So there's a shortcut to the scent if you can acquire the culture conditions.  Kills bacteria too, which is nice.  I don't know what you're going to get off acorns and oak leaves, except maybe tannin.  If the mild scent of tannin is an effective mask, then you're in luck, you can buy that purified from the suppliers to home winemakers.

[MontavonM]

Thanks for the reply. I honestly have no idea what may come off of the various leaves/nuts/grasses etc. I just wanted to give it a try and see if I was able to mask my scent by something that I made (using deer as the judge). I just think it would be awesome to know that I made the product that I used... other than rubbing dirt/mud/leaves all over your body before hunting. I'm probably going to try to do an extraction with ethanol at some point in the near future. As for the fresh earth, is there a link somewhere online that I could read about growing the cultures? (I searched but couldn't find anything)... I'm in my final undergraduate semester (starting december) and I have the opportunity to do chem/bio based research. I'm really interested in trying to do something like this in relation to fragrance research.

[curiouscat]

You might be reinventing the wheel. Look up a good modern perfumery book and they have thousands of pre-made notes that you could probably blend to get what you want. Earthy, musky, piney are definitely in the standard perfumers lexicon.

There was someone, I forget his name, who went around with a headspace GC quantifying all the worlds fragrances he could get.