The art of making fragrance essences into perfume dates back to Egyptian times. Today perfumery is a multimillion dollar business. Yet today only a few commercial perfumes are actually make from essential oils, but what is there source for those essential oils.
Much like everything you purchase at the stores today they use the blanket term fragrance to cover up over 3,000 chemicals that can be added in any number of combinations as a trade secret. Most of these 3,000 chemicals haven’t been tested on the environment or people. Also about 80% of these chemicals don’t have to be tested because they have been grandfathered in under an outdated law called the trade secret act, that protects companies from sharing what they are using under the term fragrance.
New studies are emerging, are finding that people who are exposed to conventional toxic ingredients, found in everyday products, when used everyday that it is similar to having smoked a pack of cigarettes everyday.
Fragrance affects our mood, endocrine system, nervous system, irritability, hormonal structure, respiratory system and so much more. This is a wonderful step we can take for ourselves and set a new standard in our home.
I bet you have a great collection of essential oil and we can use those to craft our own personal perfumes. Let’s spend the next several days going over how to do that.
PERFUME SUPPLIES
There are some incredible ways to use the essential oils we have in our collection. We can craft our own perfumes using the best ingredients.
Let’s start with the basics staple you will need.
~Perfume Spray Bottles or roller ball bottles
~Grain alcohol (like vodka) or organic witch hazel ( I like Thayers)
~Distilled water (tap water has deposits you don’t want in your final product)
~Essential oils
Why do the oils go to the top of the bottle and separate from the rest of the ingredients?
It means that the essential oils have an absence of stabilizers or emulsifiers in them. It’s a good thing. All you need to do is shake before each use.
You can get fancy with it or keep it simple. Add a label to the bottle or a sticker that helps you remember what the perfume is or leave them plain and simple if you prefer.
There are many fun bottles and rollers to be found on Amazon or Etsy.
PERFUME NOTES
There are three categories of oils to use in perfume making top note, middle note and base note.
What does that mean?
Top note is the very first scent you will get of the aroma of the perfume, it usually evaporates quickly and the scent doesn’t last very long. It’s a strong note and you notice it quickly but also fades quickly.
Middle note or also known as the body is the main scent, it is referred to as the heart of a perfume and the scent will last between 1-2 hours from this note.
Base note also known as the fixative or dry out note lasts several hours or a whole day. It gives the perfume its depth. Base notes are essential oils just like middle and top notes and shouldn’t be confused with base oils like avocado oil that is used to dilute essential oils.
But you can simplify it even further to create your scents and break it down into Citrus, Florals and Tree groups and combine one from each of those categories to create a custom scent all your own.
If you want to be technical about your oils you can use a small strip of paper to do what’s called Organoleptic testing. To do this you put a drop of an essential oil on the strip of paper and smell it and see what the aroma smells like and make a note of what your thoughts are. Smell the strip periodically throughout the day until the strip no longer smells. This will help you evaluate your essential oil to know if it’s a top, middle, or base note. It will tell you what the scent profile of the essential oil is, so you can think about what scents you would like to combine.
PERFUME CRAFTING
Let’s start crafting our blend, you want to aim for an agreeable, delicate fragrance and that is all personal preference as to what you find smells good to you. So really there is no right or wrong combination. To achieve the right balance of scents in your perfume you want to consider the aroma strength of essential oil you are considering for a blend. Some essential oils can be overpowering to others, you will want to balance the amount of drops you use of the strongest scents to the less fragrant scents. You will want to keep a journal or notes on your perfume creations as you are creating them so you know what you did later to recreate the blends you like the most.
You want to start with smaller amounts of drops of each essential oil, then add more of the essential oil that you feel the blend needs.
The goal is to create a blend that you like and that gives off a similar scent profile during the entire stage of the evaporation process while still being able to smell the individual aromas of each essential oil.
Start your blending process by thinking of essential oil scents that you enjoy and choose which ones you would like to try together. Then place a drop of each of those essential oils on a piece of paper and smell them together. Do you like the scents together? Is one scent stronger than the others? If so you will need to use a smaller amount of that essential oil in your blend. Remember keep a record of your thoughts and essential oil combinations.
THECHNICAL DETAILS
Let’s get a little technical today. How do you know how many drops of each essential oil to use in your roller or perfume bottle?
To formulate your scent base your formula for creating it on 100 drops. This is a ratio, so you can increase or decrease the ratio as long as you keep the amounts of each essential oil at the same ratio.
Here is an example:
Start with 60 drops of a citrus aroma.
Add a wood note say 5% or 5 drops.
Then add a spice or herbal note at a 15% ratio or 15 drops.
Next add 5-10% (5 to 10 drops) of a floral aroma.
You may want to add a green not or sweet base not to the mix.
Each time you add an essential oil to the mix stop and smell it to let I guide you as to what essential oil you want to add next. Before you get to this step you can test out whether you like the combination of essential oils by using jus a drop or two of each oil. That way you do make a larger bottle of something you don’t like.
For optimal formulation of your blends you will want to keep in mind that for every 1 oz you will want to use 20 to 30 drops of essential oils. And that can be any combination of essential oils to get to that number of drops. The larger your bottle the more essential oils you will use.
ROLL ON & PERFUME BOTTLE
When crafting a roll on it is going to be your strongest aromatic creation because you will not put any water in it. It will just be created with your essential oils and either you grain alcohol or witch hazel.
When crafting a traditional perfume in a smaller perfume bottle you want to use a 50/50 ratio of water and your grain alcohol or witch hazel. Meaning after you add your essential oils you will fill the bottle with 50% water and 50% grain alcohol or witch hazel.
If you go with a larger bottle to make a body type spray, you would then after you put your essential oils in the bottle, you will fill the bottle 1/3 of the way with grain alcohol or witch hazel and then the rest of the way with water.
As your creating your blend you can see if it’s ready by adding a little bit of grain alcohol or witch hazel to the essential oils in the bottle and shake it up, then test it on the back of your hand. If it needs some adjustment add more of the essential oil you feel the blend needs. Keep doing this step until you have the blend you want and remember to write down how many drops you’re adding each time do you can recreate your blend. Once you’re happy with the blend add the final amount of grain alcohol or witch hazel and water.
Creating perfume blends can be fun and creative, with the added therapeutic benefits of the essential oils. If you find you do not like a blend you created you can always use it for cleaning.I'd love to hear what you create, please leave a comment with your creations.
Happy Creating
Candia
0 Comments