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
Showing posts with label fragrances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fragrances. Show all posts
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Easy Homemade Fragrance
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.
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.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
How to Make Fragrances
Fragrances are surprisingly easy to make.
You may think that from the exorbitant cost in the stores that they all contain the most expensive ingredients or involve a long drawn-out process. Nothing could be further from the truth. 95% of the money you are paying for perfume is for packaging, marketing and the retailer's profit.
The difficult part of making fragrances is getting the smell that you want. There's a lot of scope for experimentation - actually that's an understatement - there's an almost unlimited scope for experimentation and creativity in perfume making. To start with you should follow some well-tried recipes. These are very simple and are as easy as baking a cake. In fact the process is a lot easier than baking a cake. It's really had to burn perfume.
Firstly some cautions. Some of the oils we will be using are quite concentrated, so exercise great care when handling them. Keep them well away from your eyes and mouth and cover work surfaces with plastic. A few on the oils can damage a table or work surface.
So.. how to make fragrances. Any fragrance, perfume, cologne, eau de cologne, eau de toilette or after-shave lotion is made from a blend of the same basic ingredients. Typically you will use an alcohol base together with one or more fragrance or essential oils. Since most people won't have these at home they will have to be purchased from a specialist retailer. Some of them are quite expensive so I'm going to cover ways to get these are greatly discount prices and how you CAN substitute items that you may well have sitting at home.
I want to back up a little and discuss the ingredient you might use and their characteristics.
Parfumiers have come up with a classification system for essential oils that you will need to understand if you are blending your own fragrances. Their system is complex so I'm going to try and break it down to the basics. Fragrance Oils are classified according to their note. They may be top note, middle note, bottom note or bridge note.
Some examples should make this clear:
Top Note Oils include mints such as peppermint and spearmint. They also include the fruits such as lemon, orange and lime. This group also includes bergamot.
Middle Note Oils are lemongrass, geranium, nutmeg, basil rosemary, rose and lavender.
Base Note Oils are patchouli, sandalwood, cedarwood and frankincense.
Before we go on, stop and think about these oils. Imagine the smell of each. Spend a little time on this and if you have some of each at home go and smell them. By becoming aware of these classifications and their characteristics if will be easy for you to sort any new essential oils into the correct category.
In addition to these three categories, we have Bridge Notes. These are oils like vanilla and lavender. These act a little differently that those in the first three notes in that they create harmony within a blend of oils.
There's a lot of discussion about some of the oils and their correct category. You may see some of them placed into a different section by another parfumier. Don't worry too much about this - we are an argumentative bunch - just get a feel for the characteristics of each scent as you consider them in a blend.
Each group of oils behaves slightly differently when in a blend. The base notes will stay active for a long time and provide the longer lasting scent. The middle notes are important but stay around for a little less time and the top notes evaporate quickly. Those are the ones you smell as soon as you apply the perfume.
Perfumes are a blend of alcohol base and oils. I've seen websites, and even books, suggest that you use vodka as a base. I can think of another and better use for vodka personally.
Interestingly enough, in the United States, The Department of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms prohibits the use of vodka, or indeed any other spirit, as an ingredient in fragrances without a special permit. The better solution is to use special perfumer's alcohol which is a blend of alcohols with a fixative that is designed for skin contact.
In future posts, I will go into the specific details on how to make fragrances as well as some secret recipes. I will also cover wholesale and discount retail supplier of fragrance oils and perfumer's alcohol.
You may think that from the exorbitant cost in the stores that they all contain the most expensive ingredients or involve a long drawn-out process. Nothing could be further from the truth. 95% of the money you are paying for perfume is for packaging, marketing and the retailer's profit.
The difficult part of making fragrances is getting the smell that you want. There's a lot of scope for experimentation - actually that's an understatement - there's an almost unlimited scope for experimentation and creativity in perfume making. To start with you should follow some well-tried recipes. These are very simple and are as easy as baking a cake. In fact the process is a lot easier than baking a cake. It's really had to burn perfume.
Firstly some cautions. Some of the oils we will be using are quite concentrated, so exercise great care when handling them. Keep them well away from your eyes and mouth and cover work surfaces with plastic. A few on the oils can damage a table or work surface.
So.. how to make fragrances. Any fragrance, perfume, cologne, eau de cologne, eau de toilette or after-shave lotion is made from a blend of the same basic ingredients. Typically you will use an alcohol base together with one or more fragrance or essential oils. Since most people won't have these at home they will have to be purchased from a specialist retailer. Some of them are quite expensive so I'm going to cover ways to get these are greatly discount prices and how you CAN substitute items that you may well have sitting at home.
I want to back up a little and discuss the ingredient you might use and their characteristics.
Parfumiers have come up with a classification system for essential oils that you will need to understand if you are blending your own fragrances. Their system is complex so I'm going to try and break it down to the basics. Fragrance Oils are classified according to their note. They may be top note, middle note, bottom note or bridge note.
Some examples should make this clear:
Top Note Oils include mints such as peppermint and spearmint. They also include the fruits such as lemon, orange and lime. This group also includes bergamot.
Middle Note Oils are lemongrass, geranium, nutmeg, basil rosemary, rose and lavender.
Base Note Oils are patchouli, sandalwood, cedarwood and frankincense.
Before we go on, stop and think about these oils. Imagine the smell of each. Spend a little time on this and if you have some of each at home go and smell them. By becoming aware of these classifications and their characteristics if will be easy for you to sort any new essential oils into the correct category.
In addition to these three categories, we have Bridge Notes. These are oils like vanilla and lavender. These act a little differently that those in the first three notes in that they create harmony within a blend of oils.
There's a lot of discussion about some of the oils and their correct category. You may see some of them placed into a different section by another parfumier. Don't worry too much about this - we are an argumentative bunch - just get a feel for the characteristics of each scent as you consider them in a blend.
Each group of oils behaves slightly differently when in a blend. The base notes will stay active for a long time and provide the longer lasting scent. The middle notes are important but stay around for a little less time and the top notes evaporate quickly. Those are the ones you smell as soon as you apply the perfume.
Perfumes are a blend of alcohol base and oils. I've seen websites, and even books, suggest that you use vodka as a base. I can think of another and better use for vodka personally.
Interestingly enough, in the United States, The Department of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms prohibits the use of vodka, or indeed any other spirit, as an ingredient in fragrances without a special permit. The better solution is to use special perfumer's alcohol which is a blend of alcohols with a fixative that is designed for skin contact.
In future posts, I will go into the specific details on how to make fragrances as well as some secret recipes. I will also cover wholesale and discount retail supplier of fragrance oils and perfumer's alcohol.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Welcome
This blog will be used to describe how I make my own fragrances and perfumes. It's really quite easy to make your own fragrance. You can experiment and create one that matches your own personality at a fraction of the store prices.
IMPORTANT:
All brand names and product names used on this website are trade names, service marks, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Furthermore, no mentioned product or brand endorses this website.
Nothing on this website constitutes, or is meant to constitute, advice of any kind. The information provided on this site is not intended to treat or cure any disease or to offer any specific medical diagnosis to any individual. Take professional advice before using any product.
We may receive commissions for recommending products on this website.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)