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How to make Perfume Oil at home? (Part I) {DIY}

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Note: This post is a lot personal and I am describing how I went about making perfume. I am not sure if I have entirely succeeded so I shall just recount my experience and my knowledge of all I have read regarding the subject. So, please bear with me. The series is divided into four parts as I could not make a huge post. Hope you like it. And, let’s get on 🙂
So, last Sunday, I sketched up a guide on how to go about using essential oils. Coming down to business, I was always interested in creating a perfume for myself because, as a general rule, perfumes don’t suit my nose and end up giving me headaches. Of course, I haven’t tried Dior and Chanel as they are quite out of my range.
And, then, sometime in last few years when I started this blog, I came across the idea that you could make perfumes at home using essential oils. But, I wasn’t sure if EO’s available in the market were really pure or not. And then, one of my friends and bloggers, Leon introduced me to this great wholesale site in India which sells EO’s and other amazing products. Check it out here. For the record, I am not asserting their purity but I found them to be better than others I have tried (I haven’t yet tried Forest Essentials, though). So, let us delve into some background of perfumes.
Perfume and its Notes
A perfume is a blend of notes of fragrances. I am talking about ones you get in the market. But, if you are going to make it personally, you can combine a fragrance for yourself using just a single fragrance as well. That’s entirely up to you. But, in general, a perfume has three notes:

  • Top Note: which is the first smell you get when you smell the fragrance. They are the lightest group of essential oils which evaporate very quickly because of their small molecular size. Generally, all the citrus and fresh EO’s come under this category. For example, lemon, orange (sweet and bitter), mandarin and many more!!!
  • Middle Note: which is the heart fragrance of your perfume and it starts developing just immediately before the top note is going to die away. It has lesser evaporation rate than the top note and thus, last longer than them. It also helps to blend away the base note more pleasantly into the perfume. This category includes a lot of EO’s like the floral genre or the oriental EO’s. For example, neroli, vanilla, rose, lavender and many more.
  • Base Note: which is the base of the perfume and lasts the longest as it has least evaporation rate and largest molecule sizes. Some of the base notes can last for days on the body. It starts developing almost after the heart of your perfume goes away. The base notes combined with the heart notes give a certain depth and character to your perfume. So, if you are going to use only single essential oil for your perfume, always use the base note. These scents are mainly woody or spicy. For example, cinnamon, frankincense, patchouli and many more.
  • Bridge Notes: which help bridge the scents of the middle and the base notes with the top notes. The middle and the base notes contribute a lot to the top note so you can say all the three notes blend in harmony. So, there is nothing as such separate called the bridge notes but this is just for reference. I don’t even know if perfumers really consider these notes either. As far as I have read, there are only three bridge notes – vanilla, lavender, neroli and Ylang Ylang. Yes, these notes are not categorized separately but are from the middle and base note family. Thus, if you are going to use Ylang Ylang, you can as well use it as a middle note and combine it with a spicy base note. Ylang Ylang is both a middle and a base note.

These are the notes which make a perfume. So, when we make Perfume at home, the various essential oils from all notes are taken and blended together.

What I did?
So, before you start making perfume, you want to buy Essential Oils from various notes which can be blended together. So, I bought five EO’s – Bergamot (it is a top note), Neroli and Rosemary (which are middle notes), Frankincense (which is a base note) and Ylang Ylang (which is both a base and a middle note and can also be categorized as a bridge note).

Now, we blend these EO’s in proportion to create a blend for the perfume. We shall discuss that in the next part.

Which Oil should I use? {Hair Care}

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Hey Everyone
Welcome to my most favorite month of the year and this year makes it even more special because of its perfect 4 week month. I like February because it is the shortest month and also because today is my birthday 🙂 No birthday cakes yet!!! But, you can always courier one 😀 Just kidding. Anyways, let us get on with today’s post.Very often, while reading articles online, I have come across stories that “this oil doesn’t do anything to my hair” and so which got me into thinking more about hair care. Ultimately, everything about your hair is dependent on how well you understand your hair. So, identifying hair type and hair texture is very important before starting on a hair care regimen. As you know that both rough and fine hair need different products, similarly, they need different oils.
Rough Hair
It is thick and damaged in a nutshell. So, it needs nourishing oils which help improve the hair structure from the inside. Generally, all the heavy nourishing oils like coconut, almond, mustard, groundnut and other oils do well on rough hair because rough hair absorbs them better and doesn’t get weighed down.
And, in the long run, these oils actually end up improving the hair structure also making the hair smoother and softer. Even shea butter and cocoa butter and other butters do real good to rough hair so if you are looking for smoothing out your hair, try out the butters.
Fine Hair
It gets weighed down very easily so the prominent need for this kind of hair is a light oil which can give it some texture. You do not really need to focus on nourishment because fine hair is generally healthy and you can not make your hair thick by using oils. The only need for this hair is hydration and texture and volume. Oil doesn’t give volume so we can rule that out.
Make sure you use light oils like jojoba, sesame oil, olive oil, rice bran oil or any oil available in the market is light enough because it has already been heavily refined. These light oils leave a fine sheen on the hair and keep it looking healthy.
Custom Oil Blend
You can also mix and match the oils according to your hair needs. For example, if you have curly fine hair which is less in volume, mix almond, castor and any light oil. Similarly, you can use a nourishing oil for scalp and a light oil for hair strands. So, use your own experience of your hair and create a personalized oil blend for yourself. I have found almond oil is more of an all-rounder and does well both on fine and rough hairs.
This post is an inspiration of the incident when the mustard oil and groundnut oil did not work for my hair. This need not be true for your hair but does open up a possibility. The long and short of it is that if you are using heavy oils on fine hair, your hair may end up being limp even after washing and if you are not using nourishing oils for rough hair, it will look more frizzy after being washed. So, use appropriate oils for your hair depending on your hair texture.
Do let me know your thoughts on this observation 🙂

How to deal with a dry skin patch? {Skin Care}

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Did you ever suffer from a dry skin patch? I know they are very annoying as I have recently been afflicted of this malady. You might have heard me saying this often that my skin gets extremely dry in winters and due to the lack of proper diet, there was a really horrible dry patch around the mouth. So, I tried some of the things to bring my skin back to normal.
How can your products affect that annoying dry skin patch? 
Your products wouldn’t definitely cause a dry skin patch unless they are so harsh and you are not really concentrating on your diet. But, your products can help the dry skin patch to remain just like it is or help a little towards healing it. Do not ever rely on your products to do the entire work but certainly, some expectations should be there. So, do not blame your products if your dry skin patches are not got rid of.
I Exfoliated!!!
Exfoliation is a very important ritual of healing a dry skin patch. It removes the dead skin cells accumulated on the patch and helps reveal the newer skin is which isn’t exactly as dry!!! But, overdoing this can make the patch red and sensitive that it will stop reacting to any treatment. So, its best to use a very gentle scrub and leave it alone for next 2-3 days.What I did? Used sugar body polish on the area (exclude salt from the recipe) once. And, another time, I used Vedic Line Papaya Scrub [review coming soon]. Both worked well.

And, what after exfoliation?
Well, we need to trap the moisture and feed the skin some real nutrients, right? So, I used Almond Oil – Very simple and very effective!!! I dabbed a little of almond oil around my mouth after applying toner and moisturizer for the night. The moisturizer I am currently using is Biotique Wheatgerm Cream which is awesome, btw and really effective [review coming soon] but then, nothing beats oils for me. And, the dry patches went away in a single night. And, my skin is healed as if it wasn’t ever broken. But, it is always best to continue the treatment over a couple of days so I switched back to applying oils on my skin. They give me the Essential Fatty Acids which I am not feeding myself.
Did you ever get a dry skin patch?