SunRose Aromatics Memorial Day Newsletter
May 27th, 2002
Vol. 2, Issue 9
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1. Welcome New & Old SRA Subscribers
2. Honoring Memorial Day
3. New & Exciting News at SunRose
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1. Welcome to SRA Subscribers.

Welcome to the SRA Newsletter, we hope you will find it informative and entertaining. Our goal is to share with our customers ~ information: featuring articles from SRA & others that will share their knowledge and expertise, any new products, specials that are going on and any news regarding the essential oil trade.

SRA welcomes feedback and comments from our readers!
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2. Honoring Memorial Day

Memorial Day is much more than a three-day weekend that marks the beginning of summer. To many people, especially the nation's thousands of combat veterans, this day, which has a history stretching back all the way to the Civil War, is an important reminder of those who died in the service of their country.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the nation's Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30.1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers.

During the first celebration of Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.

In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo—which had first celebraated the day on May 5, 1866—because the town had made Memorial Day an annual, community- wide event during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.

Especially after the events that occurred on September 11, 2001, we as a nation should take a moment to honor all those that lost their lives for this country.
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3. New & Exciting News at SunRose

We are always striving to make the website user friendly and upgrading to new features. I would like to take this moment to thank Kim Baron our Webdesigner for all her expertise and imput which does make this possible.

Within the next 2 weeks we will have both our retail and wholesale pricelist available in a PDF file, which will enable our clients to download the most current listings at SunRose.

Also, for those of you who have written in on the 'Perfumer's Wish List' within the month we should be receiving the following:

- Beeswax Absolute
- Magnolia Flower
- Champaca Flower
- Fragipani Absolute
- Hay Abs
- Osmanthus Abs

Pure Vanilla Concentrate ~
We are now offering Pure Vanilla Concentrate, when diluted in perfumer's alcohol is just heaven. As you know, the Vanilla Absolute we were offering from Madagascar is not available to us any longer. However, with this new supplier, we are very happy with this new Pure Vanilla Concentrate and think you will be as well.

Babassu ~
Have you heard about Babassu?? A client contacted me and asked if I would carry this material. Well, I had to do some research on this material as it was new to me.. and this is what I found out.:

Babassu Nut Oil ~
Babassu Palm Oil ~

Botanical Name ~ Orbignya martiana
Other Names ~ Babacu, Coco de macaco, Aguassu

Semi solid white mass at room temperature which produces and clear / yellowish straw liquid when warmed.

Refractive Index: 1.451
Acid Value: 0.18
Iodine Value: 15
Saponification Value: 256
Unsaponifiable matter: 0.20%

Major Producing Countries:
Babassu is widespread in Brazil, Mexico and Guyana.

YIELD AND DESCRIPTION
The Babassu palm produces fruit in large bunches containing, on average, 200 individual fruits. However, bunches with up to 600 fruits do occur. The individual bunch weights range from 40-90 kg and the tree produces 1-4 bunches each year. Production starts at around 8 yrs old. (Anon).

HARVESTING PERIOD
In Brazil mature fruits begin to fall from their bunches between August and November and continue to drop until the rainy season begins in January and February.

HARVESTING METHODS
Harvesting occurs naturally, as the seeds ripen and mature they fall to the ground. They are then gathered by hand.

The nut is dried in the sun to facilitate the removal of the shell from the kernel. If protected from rain etc., babassu fruits can be stored without undergoing any signs of deterioration for some considerable time.

PROCESSING METHODS
The fruits have a hard thick shell (averaging 5cm in diameter) which is difficult to crack by machine. It is estimated that a pressure of approximately 1 tone is needed to crack the shells open. While mechanical crackers have been developed their weight and power requirements have in general made them inappropriate for use in Babassu growing areas. As 1 tone of nuts only yields 120 kg of kernels transportation of whole nuts to crackers has also proved impractical.

In most areas the kernels are extracted locally by hand. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that this hand cracking accounts for 57% of the total processing cost. (Anon)

It is important that the seeds are dried before decortication. If they have a high moisture content damage, occurring during the process, can initiate enzy matic activity and cause rancidity in the oil.

Decorticating is usually carried out at home although some women do remove the kernels in the forest. The fruit is placed on a hatchet blade or an axe and is hit with a wooden club until it splits. The broken pieces are in turn hit against the blade to dislodge the kernels. Most people can extract 3-5 kg kernels per day and a good worker can sometimes extract up to 10 kg.

for more info on this :
http://www.raintree-health.co.uk/plants/babassu.html

It is excellent for soap making, hair conditioning, lip balms and creams.!

Be sure to check back to see what new items we have received. Thank you for your continued support of SunRose!
Rosanne
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SunRose Aromatics Essential Oils and Aromatherapy Products.

visit us: http://www.sunrosearomatics.com
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Rosanne Tartaro
Owner | SunRose Aromatics, LLC
roe@sunrosearomatics.com
http://www.sunrosearomatics.com