The blue lotus water lily is the heraldic symbol of the Upper Nile of Egypt. This ancient and mystic flower, Nymphaea caerulea, appears throughout the culture and religion of ancient Egypt. The blue water lily grows well along the Nile River and may have been farmed and harvested for thousands of years (Viljoen, Cherise; Notten, Alice (January 2002). “Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea”. PlantZAfrica. South African National Biodiversity Institute. Retrieved 31 March 2021.)

The long-standing lore is that Queen Cleopatra VII used a blue lotus oil fragrance as an aphrodisiac. it is purported she used this fragrance to seduce Caesar and Mark Anthony. In modern perfume shops from Cairo to Aswan, the famed blue lotus perfume is still marketed with this tale.

I visited a very fine perfumery in Aswan in August 2022. I was disappointed to be offered a blue lotus fragrance that was actually navy blue! Neither a distillate nor a maceration would produce such a deep color, thus it was dyed. After some plying, I was able to obtain what was sold to me as the true blue lotus oil, which is a viscous slightly yellow oil and highly fragrant. It is a very agreeable and enjoyable odor. On the skin, the fragrance persists for hours.

Taking a look at this ancient fragrance on a GC-MS (triple quadrople) revealed a VERY complex fragrance indeed. I tried to quickly assign structures from NIST 2.0 and found good matches for most of the peaks. [Mass analysis and structure assignments are mine].

Looking at the most volatile “top notes”, middle, and least volatiles:

I observed the usual suspects for a flower extract, compounds like linalool, geraniol, eucalyptol, ionone and citronellol. Some interesting finds were substituted jasmones and “lilial” (3-(4-tert-Butylphenyl)-2-methylpropanal). I found Ambrox ((3aR,5aS,9aS,9bR)-3a,6,6,9a-Tetramethyldodecahydronaphtho[2,1-b]furan), closely related to ambergris, which is an alleged aphrodisiac. I did not find the pyschoactive active aporphine (MW=235.30), however, there is a <possibility> a trace amount eluted at 40.90 minutes. The reason for this is likely because the melting point for aporphine is above 200’C. The maximum temperature I use for my Stabilwax column to 200’C, although my inlet adapter is held at 250’C.

Rather than flower maceration in oil, there is another possible extraction pathway the ancient Egyptians may have used: An alcohol extraction, or steeping in wine. Using whole flowers and 80pf neutral spirits, I obtained a beautiful light pink solution is obtained folloiwng maceration and allowing to steep at room temperature for about 48 hours:

Looking at the UV-Vis spectra of this extract across 200nm to 800nm using a photodiode array, there are strong absorbances in the UV region, and practically nothing in the visible!

ERIC – FINISH THIS UP WITH THE GC-MS OF THE ETHANOLIC EXTRACT 12/23