A common question raised in perfume making is whether to use Fragrance
Oil or Essential oil. If you've been shopping for both you will have
noticed that there is a steep price difference between the two.
Essential
oils are, mostly, a natural product derived from flowers or plants.
Fragrance oils are a blend, often synthetic, of a number of ingredients
usually diluted with an oil carrier.
The recipes here are really
designed for essential oils but really there's no reason you cannot use
fragrance oils. In fact, I would suggest you start with the much lower
cost fragrance oils until you understand the blending process. This will
save you a lot of money until you discover what fragrance blend works
for your skin.
It's true that the better perfumes will often come
from a blend of essential oils, so be prepared to move onto these for
the best results.
A few reasons to stick with fragrance oil:
1. Low Cost
2. Some scents are only available with fragrance oil
3. Some people are allergic to essential oil
4.
They may have a lower environmental impact. Sometimes several hundred
pounds of plants may be needed for a small bottle of essential oil.
And some in favor of essential oil:
1. Some say that they make a better quality perfume
2. They may carry natural health benefits derived from the plants
3. Some people are allergic to fragrance oils
Ultimately,
it's your choice in the end. As I've suggested, start with the
fragrance oils and if you find yourself wanting to create more advanced
perfumes, move onto essential oils.
Perfume making at home
Perfume Making at Home In Elizabethan times most large households kept a part of the garden for cultivating fragrant plants to use in medical and toilet preparations, making perfumed pomanders, wash-balls, sachets, pot pourri, cassolettes and distilled waters from them in the 'still room' of the house. The home perfumer who wishes to revive this craft may be able to follow some of the recipes of earlier times, but many of them will prove impracticable, because many of the ingredients then used, such as ambergris and musk, are now prohibitively expensive, if not unobtainable, fie, or she, does, however, have the advantage that many fragrant materials and essential oils are now readily available for purchase, and the laborious process of making them from the raw plants can be avoided.
Dry pot pourri is probably the easiest fragrant preparation to make, involving little more than the mixing of dried materials, of which a very wide range is nowadays available. The descriptions of plant materials in this book show whether they are suitable for pot pourri. Rose petals are the ingredient most commonly used. They should be collected on a dry morning free of dew and laid out to dry for about a week. Sometimes coarse salt, or salt petre, is added as a preservative. A material with fixative properties should be included.
Moist pot pourri is a little more complicated. The rose petals or other flowers and herbs should be spread out to dry for about two days, so that they are not completely dried. Layers of this material, mixed up with spices and gums which have been ground into a coarse powder, are then rammed down hard into a jar or basin with alternate layers of salt; a pinch of brown sugar and a few drops of brandy can be added; the container is then sealed tight and the mixture left to cure for at least 2 months, when it will emerge as a congealed mass which can be broken up into cakes.
Pomanders are best made by mixing aromatic materials with gum arabic or tragacanth mucilage as a bonding agent. The selected ingredients of the pomander, in the proporton of about 2 parts of gums and resins to 1 part of other dry ingredients, are finely powdered and mixed with a little of the mucilage until a paste is formed. A few drops of essential oil can be added and everything should then be well mixed by kneading. The paste is then shaped as required and left to dry.
Incense is best made using powdered charcoal as a burning base in the proportion of about 14 parts to 6 parts of aromatic material. The latter should consist of 2 parts of powdered resins, such as labdanum, storax, terebinth or frankincense, mixed with 4 parts of other fragrant plant materials (e.g. dried bay leaves, calamus root, cloves, cubebs, lavender flowers, marjoram, rosemary leaves or thyme leaves). These are all mixed into a paste with a mucilage of gum arabic or tragacanth. A drop or two of essential oil can be kneaded in. The mixture is then shaped into small cones or rolled round sticks to make joss sticks, and these are allowed to dry.
Sachets require very dry ingredients which can be ground into a coarse powder. Lavender has always been a favourite as a base, but orris, calamus, cedarwood, marjoram, sandalwood, oak moss, rose petals, verbena leaves, or patchouli leaves are good alternatives. A wide range of other materials, mostly similar to those that can be used in pot pourri, can be blended into this base. At least one ingredient with fixative properties should be included.
Liquid perfumes provide the would-be home perfume markers with rather more problems, as will be apparent from the entry above on Perfume Creation. They cannot hope to simulate the quality fragrances produced by commercial perfumeries, which may contain several hundred ingredients, including many chemicals, and they can realistically aim only at very simple constructions. They will have to be' prepared to purchase all their essential oils, some of which may be quite expensive. For a start a base will be needed on which the perfume can be built. This can either be an alcohol (vodka is sometimes used) or an oil; jojoba oil is regarded as a good, neutral, stable base oil, or, following the perfume makers of ancient Egypt and Greece, sesame oil could be used. The base should be prepared by the addition of such base notes as may be required, including fixatives, adding them drop by drop. The main body of the fragrance is then inserted, the chosen oils once again being added drop by drop. Ten drops of essential oils added to about half a pint of alcohol will produce a weak cologne-strength fragrance; for a stronger perfume a smaller amount of alcohol or base oil should be used (or, conversely, more essential oils). The mixture should be kept in a scaled container for at least a week in order to blend properly before it can be used. Home perfumers can experiment with the introduction of top notes as well (which should be added last); the evaporation rates mentioned in Poucher's table, referred to under Perfume, Classification of Fragrances, may assist in this, as will a study of which ingredients are used lor which notes in the descriptions of perfumes contained
I recently had the opportunity to review an eBook called Aroma Success. This is a book which you read on your own computer and there's also a printed version available.
The author has had her own successful business making and selling perfumes
for over nine years. She gives you her wholesale sources where she can
buy perfume oils for as little as 75 cents, which she resells for $8.
She describes how she makes several thousand dollars each month
"You
can do like I did and open your own shop, sell out of your home, build
your own web store, sell at arts fairs and festivals, do home parties.
All of these ways are featured in the manual. You can create your own
line of perfume oils like the creators of "Child" and "Kai". You can
even start a bath and body shop with the sources in this manual. "
Her
customers love having their favorite scent in lotions, bath salts,
shower gels and more. They love to know that a product has been custom
made for them. And it becomes a show when you start to add the fragrance oil right before their eyes and do your mixing and shaking.
This is a remarkable ebook and certainly opened my eyes to the many opportunities
available. There are hundreds of art and craft fairs around the
country to sell your own products. You can even open your own website
store. Sell from a mall kiosk. Hold parties at home.
She
includes Top U.S. and Canadian sources of custom-scenting bases for
creating your own products: Unscented lotions, bubble baths, bath gels,
bath salts, foaming bath grains, massage oils, body butters, face creams and more. Where to buy the best quality oils at the best prices.
Even
if you only download this book for the wholesale sources it's well
worth the modest cost. If you start a modest home business you could
recoup the cost many many times over.
Here are some of my own favorite perfume recipes. All of these use 1
cup of distilled water and 5 teaspoons of vodka or other spirit, only
the fragrance oils vary. Follow the instructions in the previous post
to make these fragrances.
Arabian Dusk
3 drops of coriander oil
1 drop of Frankincense oil
3 drops of Juniper oil
4 drops of Orange oil
Motivation
1 drop Frankincense oil
4 drops Grapefruit oil
3 drops Rosemary oil
2 drops Spearmint oil
Here's my favorite cologne recipe:
3 drops lemongrass oil
10 drops lavender oil
10 drops lime oil
Don't
be afraid to experiment with any of these fragrance recipes. Learning
how to make your own fragrances is as much about experimentation as
about following recipes. Just keep notes of everything you do so that
if you do discover how to make the perfect perfume, you can duplicate
the results.
In this post, I'm going to cover the basic how to make perfume
instructions. There's no special skills involved in making perfume, just
follow the procedure and you will get a great smelling fragrance.
Since
Perfumer's Alcohol can be hard to find in most cities, I'm going to
suggest using Vodka in these recipes. As long as it's for personal use
and you aren't selling the perfume, The Department of Tobacco, Alcohol
and Firearms won't come and hunt you down. Use only 100 proof alcohol
and be sure to test a single drop on your skin to make sure you aren't
allergic to any ingredient.
The strength of the perfume is
dependent on the ratio of fragrant oils, alcohol and water in the blend.
Each blend will smell different and the amount of essential oil is
critical. A single drop too much, or too little, will change the
characteristic of the perfume completely.
The basic procedure for making perfume is the same whatever the blend.
Most
simple perfumes are a mixture of alcohol, essential of fragrance oils
and distilled water. Don't be tempted to use water from your kitchen
faucet for this, it must be distilled. The oils are stirred slowly into
the alcohol, one drop at a time. Stir slowly but long enough for the
oils to be completely dispersed.
Let the blend of oil and alcohol
stand undisturbed for 48 hours. Now add the distilled water, again
stirring slowly until completely dispersed.
Perfume is like fine
wine, it needs to stand and mature before it reaches perfection. Leave
your perfume to stand for at least three weeks in a cool dark place.
After
the perfume has matured, filter it through a coffee filter to remove
any sediment and bottle it into a colored glass bottle with a stopper.
Part
of the fun of making your own fragrances is being able to experiment
and make one that is yours alone. You may need to experiment for a while
before you discover the perfect scent, so make notes of everything you
do including the exact quantities used. Remember that a single drop of
an essential oil can change the smell of the perfume completely.
Here are some recipes to get you started:
Rain Shower
This is a very light scent reminiscent of a lingering rain shower.
5 drops Bergamot
3 drops Sandalwood
5 drops Cassis
1 cup distilled water
5 teaspoons of Vodka
Blend the ingredients as described above.
English Country Garden
5 drops Valerian
5 drops Chamomile
3 drops Lavender
1 cup distilled water
5 teaspoons Vodka
Here are some good sites for background reading on making perfumes and fragrances:
Make your own perfumes
Perfumery
Basenotes Forum
Essential oils can be quite expensive to buy so I though I would cover how you can make many of them at home.
Firstly,
what is an essential oil? The formal definition for essential oil is
that it is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid that contains volatile
aromatic compounds from flowers and plants. In pure layman's terms it's
the concentrated smelly stuff from flowers!
Most essential oils
are made commercially by distillation. In this process the raw plant
material, which can be in the form of flowers, bark, leaves, stems,
roots or seeds, is placed on a rack above the water in a still. When the
water is heated, the steam passes through the flowers vaporizing the
complex volatile compounds. These vapors then pass through a cooling
coil and condense back into liquid form. The essential oil itself then
forms a film on the top of the liquid. It is then separated by skimming.
The remaining water underneath the oil is a product known as a hydrosol
and is often sold in this form as rose water or lavender water.
Unless
you live in West Virginia and have a cousin with a still this probably
isn't a practical method to use at home. Luckily distillation is a
fairly modern method of producing essential oils so we have some more
traditional alternatives for making our own fragrance oils.
Enfleurage
is the process of placing flower petals or similar plant material onto
trays of odourless vegetable oils which will absorb the flower's
volatile essential oils. You can use a variation of the technique to
make your own essential oils. Although this doesn't produce oils as
concentrated as you can purchase, this is fairly easy to do at home
given the raw materials.
You can use a variety of vegetable oils in this process including olive oil, sweet almond oil or refined jojoba oil.
How to make essential oils:
You will need:
Half a cup of oil
Four cups of tightly packed flowers (see instructions)
A wide-mouth jar such as a mason jar
A wooden mallet or similar
A zipping plastic bag
Some cheesecloth for filtering
You will need four cups of flowers picked over the course of a week for the best results.
Put
one cup of the flowers into the plastic bag and expel as much of the
air as you can before sealing. Bruise the flowers in the bag with a
wooden mallet. The idea behind putting them in a plastic bag first to
cut down on the mess and to avoid losing any of the material. Don't bash
them to a pulp, this isn't necessary, just hit the bag a dozen times
gently.
Mix the flower material with the oil well and place it
into the jar. Seal the jar and put it into a warm place for about 48
hours. A sunny window ledge or a warm spot in the kitchen is fine. The
warmer the spot, the less time they need to be left but don't overdo the
warming or you may damage the oils.
Filter the mixture through the cheesecloth and return the oil to the jar. Discard the filtered flower material.
Take
the next cup of flowers and repeat the bruising process. Mix this batch
with the oil from step one and leave in a warm place for another 48
hours or so.
Repeat twice more with the next two cups of flowers.
After
the final straining, transfer the oil to a storage bottle and keep in a
cool, dark place. Colored bottles are ideal for storage. This will keep
for up to a year.
This whole process to make your own essential
oil will take a week or so so isn't as quick as the distillation process
but of course doesn't involve the expense of building or buying a
still.
Before I discuss ways to make "proper" perfume here's an idea for an easy to make fragrance using only home ingredients.
Take about a cup and a half of flower blossoms. You can use rose, lavender, honeysuckle or anything that has a strong fragrance. Chop them roughly and add to three cups of warm water.
Leave the mixture to soak overnight and in the morning strain through cheesecloth or similar material. Put the mixture into an old saucepan (you may not want to use your best pans for this!) and simmer on the stove gently. The emphasis is on the word gently. Use only a very low heat. Reduce until there are only a few tablespoons left.
Cool and store in a suitable bottle. This fragrance will keep for about a month or six weeks in a cool place.