alternative for lavender oil???

[Leigh]

Amazon is just about the last place to look. It will just be another ingredient in all kinds of "snake oil" products.

Amazing how assumptions will lead us astray.

I did not look at all 6,000 offerings, but the ones I looked at on the first page appeared to be pure lavender oil.

- Leigh

[Drew Wiley]

"Pure" doesn't necessarily equate to specific functionality. I'm not personally familiar with lavender oil options. But I've sure seen a lot of "pure tung oil" claims over the years - and there's no such thing in a bottle, or it would be thicker than mayonnaise or cold molasses. How many times does that BS description happen to pop up on Amazon too? That should tell you something. Anytime the word "oil" is involved in a marketing label, there's more than a 50% chance of deceptive labeling. That even applies to the vast majority of "virgin olive oil" sold in this country. That's why I wouldn't want to gamble with any source that doesn't understand the specific application. How the heck do you know there aren't other solvents involved? These kinds of things tend to wiggle around both FDA and MSDS requirements. Just like shellacs. Some have wax in them, some don't. Some shellac products are edible, some will kill you. Some might successfully coat a film emulsion, some might dissolve it. It can make a heck of a difference.

[Leigh]

Drew,

We're not talking about tung oil. We're talking about lavender oil.

Given that Amazon has a 100% no-questions-asked return policy, how can you go wrong?

- Leigh

[Peter De Smidt]

You can also get all of the traditional varnish supplies from stringed instrument material suppliers. That way the markup will be even higher than if buying a photo product. And it "might" be made by a holy person on a sacred mountain.

[Drew Wiley]

Learn the hard way, if you wish. I've seen people go bankrupt on that premise. How can you go wrong?? - I could write a book on that one! Do you think Amazon is in the business of checking out ingredients in their listed products? Do they employ chemists from specific industries or trades? Of course not. Are they going to replace your lost image on a plate, that you might have driven six hundred miles to get in the first place? They're a big octopus with arms extending all over the place, and are already in trouble for, naively or not, selling counterfeit products.

[Leigh]

Are they going to replace your lost image on a plate, that you might have driven six hundred miles to get in the first place?

Of course not.

If you're stupid enough to drive 600 miles and use a product you haven't tested, you deserve what you get.

All products have the contents listed on the label, and MSDS sheets.
If you don't like what you see, send it back for a full refund.

- Leigh

[mdarnton]

It's not possible to name a substitute for lavendar oil without knowing your recipe to see what is doing there. It serves several different functions, in different varnish formulas. It can be a brushing lubricant, a drying retarder, a mutual solvent, or a simple solvent. It is a solvent, not an oil, and none remains after drying, so you don't need to worry about leaving it out IF you can do what you need to do without it. Another point: old recipes confuse lavendar oil and spike lavendar oil--they are not the same thing.

Anyway, the best source for this kind of thing is Kremer Pigments. They are a German company with a store in NYC so that covers the US and Europe. Everything they sell is the best quality, reliable. The most likely problem with lavendar oil is age; the fresh oil evaporates completely, but as it goes bad it increasingly polymerizes into a resin which does not evaporate. In that sense, probably the worst place to buy it is the first class product from a little back street art store with no turn-around.

If you can't find any and you want to experiment, kerosene can perform the same function in some recipes with the warning that it takes much longer to completely dry (a week instead of a day or two), and even one drop is often enough for the purpose (I mean that! A little goes a very long way*). Check your kerosene by putting a drop on white paper. If the translucency is gone after a couple of days, the kerosene is good, IF it performs the intended function (it won't work as a solvent, it won't work in recipes which are essentially alcohol based, etc.)

*I use kerosene as a brushing aid in one of my violin varnishes as a L.O. substitute. The first time I did, I made a direct per volume substitute for lavender oil and when I came back the varnish had run right off the violin and was in a puddle under it.

[Tin Can]

I believe, Micheal.

Cheers!

[goamules]

Again, buy from someone that knows your purpose. Most of the ebay and amazon ads for "lavander oil" are in the aromatherapy arena. You could buy some, test it in an expensive batch of sandarac varnish, finish some plates, and wait a few months or years to see if your image fades, cracks, or fogs.

Or just get it for $8.00 here:

https://www.bostick-sullivan.com/cart/1063.html

I've bought from B&S and tested their wetplate kits, written reviews about them. Always happy. They are great resources for this type of photography. Let's keep the photography suppliers in business, and let the aromatherapy small businesses fend for themselves.

[Tin Can]

+111!