DIY

How to make Solid Perfume at home? (Part III) {DIY}

Swathy · February 15, 2012 · 7 Comments

So, last two weeks I mentioned a little about background in perfume making and how I went about making my first blend. Today, I wanna talk about making solid perfumes.

Ingredients

Essential Oil blend (I used the one I talked about last week)
Vaseline / Beeswax (I used vaseline so I shall outline that)
Almond Oil / Jojoba Oil
Glass Jar / small tin box

Method

Melt vaseline till it becomes completely clear. Same goes with beeswax. Use a double boiler for safety.
Take a tablespoon of the melted vaseline and pour it into the glass jar or tin box.
Add a tablespoon of almond oil.
Follow with a tablespoon of Essential Oil blend.
Let the mixture cool and your solid perfume is ready!!!

The idea here is to divide the vaseline / beeswax, almond oil and the essential oil blend into the ratio of 1:1:1 depending on the amount of the perfume you want. But, from personal experience, a single table spoon of each would last really long. So, try out smaller batches only.Which is better – Perfume Oil or Solid Perfume? Many factors decide this answer.
– Ease of Application
– Strength of Perfume
– Duration of Stay

Solid Perfume is easy to apply but Perfume Oil is more strong (probably). How long does solid perfume stay really depends on your own body chemistry. So, you can try both and choose one which suits you the most.

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

Swathy · February 8, 2012 · 11 Comments

So, last time I talked about a little background information necessary to know when going to make perfumes. Today, I shall be talking about how to make a perfume and how to blend the essential oils.

Process of making a Perfume Oil

Ingredients

Essential Oils (your favorites)
Droppers for each
Dark amber bottles
Journal / Book

Method

Mix the base, middle and top notes in your own desired ratio by putting some drops of each in the dark bottle. Use separate eye droppers for each EO. Very Important: Write down your recipe. This is called an Essential Oil blend. You can use it in making your lotions or massage oils or body oils too. But, don’t forget to follow the guidelines to use EO’s.
When you are going to mix a recipe, always make sure that your EO’s blend well with each other otherwise your whole blend will get spoiled.
Do not shake the bottle to mix the EO’s. Roll the bottle gently between your palms, instead.
Leave this blend in a dark and warm place undisturbed for 48 hours. That gives the EO’s time to ‘marry’ each other and either enhance each other’s fragrance or degrade each other’s fragrance depending on the EO’s you have used.
After 48 hours, take the bottle and open the cap. Let the fragrance rise from the bottle and sniff it. Write down your observations and notes on the fragrance. If you do not like it at all or if they are not blending together, you might want to add another EO which can allow the different fragrances to blend. It’s a lot of fun doing it and it’s just like an experiment which might pass or fail.
Do all hit and trials and always remember to keep a record of whatever you are doing including the dates too – date on which you made the blend, the date of observations and even the date on which you are happy with the blend.
Now, once you are happy with the blend you are going to make, you can make it in large quantities and store it for a month or two to let the blend ‘cure’. The fragrance of the blend changes overtime so you should keep on observing the changes for a month at least.
After the curing period is over, the EO blend is added to the carrier oil (almond or jojoba oil or even coconut oil) in a ratio of 15-30% depending on the strength of the perfume you want.
And, leave the oils to blend again for at least a week. And, after the period, your perfume oil is ready!!!

So, those are the steps to make the perfume oil. Now, I am going to talk a bit about my own experience.

What did I do?

When you are going to create an EO blend, always remember to take the EO’s which blend with each other. So, reading the profiles of each EO is very essential. I consulted MountainRoseHerbs (google it) database mostly. They mention everything pertaining to the EO information.
Also, I want to mention beforehand that many EO’s are concentrated and have their own side-effects so read the information carefully before buying them. For example, almost all the citrus EO’s like Bergamot, lemongrass, etc. are phototoxic, many EO’s specially spice ones like connamon, cloves, etc. are irritating to the skin, not all EO’s should be used during pregnancy.

So, I chose 5 EO’s which I bought keeping in mind everything –

Bergamot (the top note which is probably phototoxic but I am not sure entirely),
Rosemary (middle note and should not be used during pregnancy),
Neroli (middle note which is floral and exotic and is safe to use anytime),
Ylang Ylang (base and middle note, should not be used during pregnancy and gives headaches too if used in excess) and
Frankincense (base note, entirely safe to be used anytime)

After you have your stock, you should take each EO and sniff its aroma and write your own observations on each. For example, Neroli is a very strong scent and generally overpowers everything but its lovely. So, I took notes about each EO. That also gives me a general idea about how I should go on blending it depending on what kind of fragrance do I want.

My First Blend

Frankincense – 10 drops (base)
Neroli – 10 drops (middle)
Ylang Ylang – 15 drops (bridge)
Bergamot – 10 drops (top)

Always add the base notes first, then the middle and then the top notes. I kept the fragrance for 24 hours (because I was impatient, don’t be!!) and didn’t really like it so I added 15 drops of Ylang Ylang again!! Don’t make that mistake. Excess of Ylang Ylang gives headaches but strictly speaking, I love the fragrance of Ylang Ylang but I am growing fond of Neroli now. I kept the blend for 15 days around and added it to almond oil in the ratio of 1:3 (again a mistake!!) [add 45 drops of almond oil in a dark bottle and then, add 15 drops of the EO blend] and kept it for a day or two before using (need it to keep it for a week). But, I loved the blend a lot. It was dominated by Neroli though. And, what I learned from this was that keep the strong fragrances concentration less if you don’t want them to dominate.

So, that was the story of my first attempt at perfume making. And, seriously, it’s addictive, especially when you can get all kinds of EO’s!!! Next week, I shall follow up with more of the blends and some other lessons I learned.

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

Swathy · February 1, 2012 · 2 Comments

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.