Hey everyone, just wanted to say thanks for all the great help here at the Nexus!
Now, it's my turn to share my discoveries:

d-limonene dissolves Cactus Wax fast!!!
d-limonene is expensive, so I put a little of the orange oil in a shotglass, inserted my spray bottle uptake tube, and sprayed my fresh cactus. Within minutes it completely DISSOLVED the outer wax! Just wipe off the wax with a paper towel and that's it. (No fuss, no muss) Or saturate your paper towel with d-limo and apply to fresh cacti.
Hope this helps. And thanks again for all the great info!
Love,
Miss Demenor.

damn i was so hoping this worked - tested it - loads of dlimo brushed onto a peice of pedro - no change at all.

Isn't it wonderful? Yet another great household use for d-limonene.
Works great for cucumbers and other waxy fruits as well.
Love,
Miss Demenor.

What kind of Limo do you have ??
Not that I would ever want to try this, I'm just curious.

Very strange indeed...


Much Peace and Rainbows

I don't understand, it worked for me.
I received a newsletter from green terpene about how it removes wax from cucumbers and other waxy fruit. I got the best stuff they had, the lable says pure and natural, made by nature, not by man, 98.5 pure, it has a picture of an orange on this bottle, not the lime one. I got the quart size- clear liquid.
I removed the spines, sprayed it in the sink, did some cleaning around the house, came back and scrubbed it gently as with other vegys to clean, and it smeared up. Chunks of it wiped off, it was not hard to remove all the wax in a short time.
Sorry it did not work for you, I don't know why. Perhaps it's my cacti or something.
Just trying to help.
Love,
Miss Demenor.

it could very well be this cactus i have - its got almost no spines but other than that its fairly indestructable, it even survived a 12hr freezing.

This would explain a weird looking substance that I get in my limonene pulls. It is white and looks just like an emulsion, since it seems to be liquid or jelly-like. It sits on top of the vinegar layer separating from the limonene. It will not easily pass through a coffee filter. I find this stuff showing up, especially by the time I have used limonene over and over again. I just assumed it was an emulsion that wasn't easy to separate.

Any ideas?

Why do we not want this wax? I always left it on.

Is that a problem?

The wax or cuticle shouldn't contain mescaline. In this case it is just another adulterant that would need to eventually be removed. It's very hydrophobic. The cuticle or outer skin, largely contains cutin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutin

Honestly, for myself, leaving on the wax, doesn't seem to cause much of a problem, if any. I certainly wouldn't leave the wax on, if I was eating the raw flesh. Just too much unnecessary gunk to eat. My stomach doesn't like wax. But, if making an extract not much of a problem is caused, if any.