Maybe my story and tips will help next time, if there is one.
Thanks to the several above posters to drill into the OP's head DON'T eat the cotton, it is totally unnecessary and easily quite dangerous to your body as cotton can't be broken down, only passed through. Also, soaking the cotton for 12 hours in any liquid at all gives nothing to the experience. Just submerge the entire cotton, I picked V-8 juice (ice cold it masks flavor well), and squeeze the hell out of the cotton 5 or 6 times while under the liquid of your choice.
There is no Chemistry involved, just wring the cotton out like a sponge, throughly, and all you can get out of it you will. This will assure you an even dose and an instant-release effect. Eating that gross cotton rod delays release of the drug and the rods are dosed very unevenly. It should take no longer then one hour to feel most of the effects.
1/4 of the liquid with a bit of light food in your stomach, such as crackers or dry toast, is the way to go with no tolerance, have a good-sized drink handy as well as you want to stay well hydrated on any stimulant. 1/2 of the liquid may be fine for some, but it may be too much for others, tolerance or not. I have done it myself 5 or 6 times and it works, but IME the body load is too much to handle before I got the mental effects I was looking for, (1 and 1/4 at once). I knew my tolerance and I was still up for a full 24 hours. This is not a drug to be toyed with, but if it is all you have I understand.
Please, just be safe about using it, a friend took the liquid from 2 whole rods and got quite ill due to the strength he was not expecting, and was up 48 hours due to being careless. OTC never equals safe. I hope everything comes out alright. Lastly, not a good study drug even though it may feel a lot like Adderall it is far from it. IME concentration is difficult and body feelings/load or even the euphoria gets in the way of making it a truly useful stimulant.
Hope some of that helped. Almost forgot, people have died from extracting the powder from the rods, drying them out, and then IV'ing them, so please no one consider that, this one is to be taken orally only.