How To Make Your Own Perfume Oils
Perfume blends have several advantages over alcohol-based ones as their oils are not as invasive and won’t irritate the skin.
The best part is that they are easier to make and much more affordable since they contain fewer ingredients and don’t have alcohol. Hence, being less potent, they are more suitable for those with sensitive skin.
Creating perfume oils can be a fun and exciting experience because mixing and matching different ingredients and coming up with unique fragrances never gets old. Not only do you get a useful end-product, but you also get to learn something new and have an enjoyable time.
If you want to learn how to make perfume oils easily, our informative guide is here to help. It has all the relevant details and steps for a hassle-free experience.
Creating Your Own Scents
Even if you lack prior experience and knowledge, creating perfume scents is an incredibly easy task. For beginners, it is highly recommended to start with just three essential oils before moving on to more intricate techniques.
Using fewer essential oils in the beginning can help you get an idea regarding what different scents smell like when put together. This knowledge is essential if you do not want the fragrance to become too faint or overwhelming.
An ideal perfume can be divided into three different notes – deep notes (bottom or base notes), complemented or heart notes (middle note), and top notes.
A. Top Notes
These lighter scents are the ones that are first picked up by the senses. They gradually fade into deeper notes and make up about 30% of the perfume.
Some of the most common ingredients used for making the top note include basil, coriander, grapefruit, lemon, lemongrass, peppermint, orange, and spearmint. These compounds are generally highly volatile, as well as being light, fresh, and uplifting.
B. Middle Notes
Middle notes make up about 50% of the perfume and are responsible for blending the top note and the bottom one. Some ingredients commonly used to make up the middle note include black pepper, cardamom, juniper, lavender, cypress, pine, rosemary, and others.
Although not as volatile as top notes, ingredients used to create the middle notes often create warm and comforting scents.
C. Bottom Notes
Ideally, 20% of the blend should be made up of base notes, as these are the scents that will persist throughout the day. Base note ingredients often include balsam peru, cedarwood, cinnamon, clove, frankincense, jasmine, rose, vanilla, and sandalwood.
These notes are also generally very rich and create a relaxing atmosphere.
Understanding Essential Oils
One of the core ingredients in perfume scents is essential oils. These are basically plant extracts produced by processing various parts of different plants, such as flowers, bark, leaves, or even fruits. Human beings have been using these plant extracts for centuries to cure various ailments and diseases, improve the ambience, or even for culinary purposes.
The perfume industry is one of the biggest users of essential oils, combining them with other chemicals and compounds to create various fragrances to match different tastes.
When used properly, essential oils can offer several benefits for human health and wellbeing. For instance, aromatherapy, which has become incredibly popular in recent years, makes use of these oils for therapeutic purposes. [1] Moreover, the human skin can absorb essential oils, and these oils can be highly beneficial for the body.
Essential Oil Categories
There are several categories of essential oils, and knowing about them can help you understand what different oils smell like and how to pair them with other products.
1. Camphoraceous
As the name suggests, camphoraceous oils have an aroma similar to camphor, and their strong smell can remind you of medicinal tinctures and tonics. These oils generally include eucalyptus, frankincense, hyssop, marjoram, rosemary, sage, and camphor. What’s more, you can blend them with other oils that may be citrus, earthy, woodsy, or herbaceous.
2. Floral
Floral oils contain ingredients sourced from flowering plants, such as jasmine, clary sage, lavender, rose, chamomile, geranium, etc. These combine well with scents like spicy, citrus, and other floral essences.
3. Mint
Oils that fall into this category have a strong and cooling aroma and usually contain peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, and pennyroyal. Moreover, they blend well with earthy, woodsy, citrus, and herbaceous scents.
4. Musky
Musky oils have earthy, robust scents due to ingredients like citronella, myrrh, and patchouli. You can blend these with minty or woodsy scents for the best results.
5. Spicy
This essential oil with a spicy fragrance can invigorate any scent as it contains strongly aromatic ingredients, like anise, basil, clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. You can blend them easily with citrus and floral scents.
6. Earthy
Earthy oils smell like wet dirt or fresh earth and are made up of cypress, pine, fir, or cedarwood to blend well with other earthy tones.
7. Woodsy
Essential oil with a woodsy scent can remind you of taking a walk through the woods due to the presence of fir, cedarwood, pine, and cypress. The best part is that they blend well with almost any fragrance.
8. Herbaceous
Herbaceous oils have a slightly pungent and woodsy aroma, such as those of garden plants. They often contain lavender, geranium, clary sage, rosemary, and peppermint, while citrus, spicy, or woodsy scents go well with these oils.
9. Citrus
These oils have a fresh, uplifting fragrance similar to citrus fruits and contain lemongrass, grapefruit, tangerine, mandarine, etc. They blend well with exotic, woodsy, floral, and minty scents.
10. Exotic
Exotic oils have a warm, sweet, and slightly pungent aroma due to the presence of ingredients like sandalwood, clove, ginger, patchouli, etc.
11. Resinous
Soft, deep, and buttery scents are present in resinous oils, as they contain vanilla, peru balsam, myrrh, and frankincense. They also blend well with floral and citrus scents.
Customizable Essential Oil Perfume Recipe
Now that you know what role essential oil plays, it is time to look at how to create a perfume. This recipe is highly customizable, so you can experiment with different ingredients, mixing and matching them to develop unique fragrances. What’s more, you can find most of these ingredients at home.
Ingredients List
- 50 ml of about three tablespoons of carrier oil (jojoba or fractionated coconut oil)
- 1 ml or 20 drops of preferred essential oils
- 50 ml dropper bottle or roller-ball
- Bottled water
- Coffee filter and funnel (optional)
Preparation Method
For creating 10 ml of perfume, you will need about five to ten drops of essential oils.
1. Filling The Container With Essential Oils
You need to fill the container with the essential oils, starting with the base note and working towards the top note. When trying out this recipe for the first time, make sure not to use more than three essential oils at a time. Plus, use a dropper to add the required amount of essential oils.
2. Making Adjustments
Since this is a highly customizable recipe, you can adjust it while adding the ingredients. Smell the blend as you proceed, adjusting the quantities of various compounds according to your preference.
3. Adding The Carrier Oil
Then, pour the carrier oil into the roll-on container or dropper bottle until it is full. Once full, replace the lid and shake the container thoroughly.
4. Letting The Oil Blend
Before you test the perfume, you will need to let it sit for a few days so that the oils can mix with each other. So, keep the container in a spot where it will remain undisturbed for at least a couple of days.
5. Adding Water And Mixing
If you find the fragrance to your liking, add some bottled water to the blend and shake it vigorously for up to one minute.
6. Testing The Perfume
Before using the perfume, perform a patch test on a small area of your skin to ensure that the blended perfume will not irritate your skin.
7. Using The Perfume
You can use the dropper to add a couple of drops of the essential oil perfume on the inside of your wrists or behind the ears.
8. Transferring To Another Bottle
This is an optional step, and if you want to transfer the perfume to another bottle, use the coffee filter and funnel to do so. Just make sure to cap the bottle tightly so that the fragrance does not dissipate.
Purchasing Supplies
We’ve created this section to help you find the best supplies for making a perfume with essential oils.
A. Essential Oils
Since essential oils are the core component of our perfume, it is crucial to procure them from reputed brands that are known for their quality. If possible, go with brands that offer therapeutic-grade, high-quality oils and also undertake third-party testing to ensure purity and potency.
B. Carrier Oils
As mentioned above, the most popular carrier oils for making a DIY perfume include fractionated coconut oil or jojoba oil. They are ideal for creating perfumes because they do not get spoiled quickly and have no odor. [2]
C. Containers
The most convenient way of using and carrying your DIY perfume is by using a roller-ball. Also, another option would be to use a dropper bottle, but it is more difficult to use.
Additionally, light can often damage perfumes, so make sure to purchase bottles made of dark glass.
Precautions
When making your perfume oils, it is recommended to take certain precautions, as plant-derived substances can be quite potent[3]. If used in the wrong quantities, they can sensitize or irritate the skin, so to ensure safety while making the perfume, use the appropriate amount of oil.
Additionally, certain citrus essences can cause photosensitivity that can lead to health issues. Hence, make sure to research and test the ingredients before using them.
Also, source the ingredients from reliable companies, which can take some time as the highest quality ingredients are not available easily. Using poor quality ingredients can affect the quality of the perfume and result in undesirable health conditions, as mentioned above.
Following these precautions will ensure that you can create the best quality perfumes while having a great time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What percentage of concentrated essential oils can you use safely while making a perfume?
It is highly recommended not to use essential oils having a concentration of over 20%, and we suggest that you use a lower concentration of oils for sensitive skin. For example, one milliliter of the oil is about 20 drops from a glass dropper.
Q2. How to apply the perfume for maximum effect?
How you apply the perfume depends upon the type of bottle you have. Some of the regions where the perfume has maximum impact include behind the ears, on the collarbone, the chest, and the nape of the neck.
Q3. What to do if one scent is much stronger and overpowers the others?
If one scent is more powerful than the others, first, mix the other scents in the container. Then, add the strongest scent, making sure to squeeze one drop at a time. This will guarantee balance among the different scents of the perfume, ensuring that you can experience an amalgamation of organic smells.
Final Words
I hope you enjoyed learning how to make perfume oils using this easy DIY recipe.
Almost all the supplies you need are very affordable, and some can even be found easily at home. Additionally, this method does not require much time and effort and is the best way for beginners to learn about perfume making.
Once you become familiar with the method, keep experimenting with various ingredients to create unique blends and fragrances. Plus, keep a record of the recipes to recreate them in the future.
Before long, you’ll master the art of creating DIY perfumes to impress your friends and family.
References
1.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7865210/
