Perfume

With all of the scents on the market like Hugo fragrance or Davidoff fragrance, why is it so difficult to find just the right perfume? From flowery to fruity to musky, there just doesn’t seem to be the one choice that works best for you. So why not make your own perfume at home?

How to make your own fragrance:

Before you begin to make homemade perfume, you need to gather a few basic perfume supplies. Glass beakers or measuring cups are best because plastics and metals react with the ingredients creating a different fragrance outcome than intended. You will also need bottles to store your creation. Make sure they have tight fitting lids to prevent evaporation. Glass stir rods like the ones used to mix drinks are the best utensils for stirring since a metal spoon can contaminate the mixture.

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Next assemble the basic ingredients. The basic ingredients needed to create your homemade perfume are essential oils, pure grain alcohol and water. Essential oils are the “smelling” part of the mix. They can come from plants and animals or from synthetic materials. The natural perfume oils are rarer and costlier but worth the investment for an exceptional product.

The best source for pure grain alcohol is Vodka. You do not need an expensive brand. When you go to buy it just tell the clerk you don’t care what it tastes like because you don’t plan to drink it, you are going to wear it.

When it says you need water, please don’t just turn on the tap and go to work. The chemicals and minerals in a municipal water supply can change your results. Even the purest spring water can contain unpleasant mineral smells. For the best results in your perfume, use only distilled water.

Next you must decide what you want your designer perfume to smell like. If you already have a recipe to follow this is not difficult. If not, you may need to experiment with a lot of different oils until you find the blend that suits you.

Remember to consider the note properties of your oils. Begin with your base notes of sandalwood, moss, fern, vanilla, lichen or cinnamon. These scents will last the longest and anchor your perfume.

Middle notes are a bit lighter and include geranium, ylang-ylang, lemongrass, and neroli. These oils will brighten your base notes and help form the main theme of you perfume.

Finally, choose your top notes from lime, orange, lemon, orchid, lavender, rose or bergamot. These are the lightest scents that you will smell immediately upon application of the perfume. They tend to dissipate quickly and leave the base and middle notes to linger.

When you find the right combination of oils, you can make your own perfume that is as unique as you. And since scent is closely related to memory, you can become unforgettable.

Remember that home perfume making is an art, not a science. While most commercial fragrances contain hundreds of ingredients, even the simplest perfume made from flower petals and water can be fun to make and wear when it expresses who you really are.