Perfume for women or perfume for men, we spend a fortune every year making ourselves smell good. If we smell amazing we feel amazing The perfume industry is huge.
Perfume a marriage of aromatic herbs, spices, grasses, flowers, bark and animals.
Our sense of smell is probably the strongest sense we have and has the power to bring memories flooding back to us, whether they be good or bad. We use this sense to detect danger such as gas, fires and rotten food, happiness such as baby smells, cut grass meaning spring is finally here, coconut reminding us of holidays but also sadness like a perfume a loved one who is no longer with us used to wear. Our love of perfumes go back centuries.
Perfumes can be really expensive to buy but have you ever thought of making your own? You can easily take a few essential oils, fragrance oils or aroma chemical and blend them together to make a fairly simple perfume to wear. What is the best perfume to buy? What are the top ten best perfumes? Do people always choose the same perfume? These are questions people always ask. To me it's impossible to answer most of them as perfume is so personal to each and everyone one of us but Chanel No. 5 by Coco Chanel is usually at the top of the list, followed closely by Coco Madamoiselle, Youth Dew by Estee Lauder and also Joy by Dior.
So many of my students tell me they have no idea how to blend oils together but it's really surprising how we seem to know what smells go together without to much thought. It takes years to train to become a 'nose' for a top perfume house and I so admire them blending together as much as 80 different oils and producing a gorgeous perfume - no wonder our perfumes are so expensive. However, with just a little bit of knowledge, a few aroma oils and a fixative a simple bottle of perfume can be made.
How do you start
Think about all the different smells you like and write them down.
Think of a type of perfume you would like to make i.e floral, woody, spicy etc.
Write down individual smells that make up your choosen type i.e if you are going for floral you could put down rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, geranium etc.
Choose a couple out of your aroma oils and put a drop of each onto a cotton wool pad.
Leave it a while and see if you like the two together. If you don't like the smells throw away the cotton wool pad and start again with another two different oils. If you like the smell the idea is to now add another aroma oil or two and build on the perfume - I like to think of it as building blocks while the real name is called accords.
Once you have an aroma you love, its time to actually make your perfume. To make your Eau de Parfum you will need 8-15% aroma oils and 92-85% perfumers alcohol to fix your aroma. Pour into a clean glass perfume bottle with an atomiser top.
Allow the oils to blend into the perfumers alcohol - your perfume will be ready to use the next day.
Quick Recipes
Lavender, Sweet Orange, Ylang Ylang, Patchouli
Mandarin, Grapefruit, Bergamot, Clary Sage, Amyris
Have fun exploring different aroma, experiment with aroma chemicals and design your perfume.
x Diane
To spend a wonderful aroma filled day with me and take home your own perfume please go to :
www.aromanatural.co.uk and book onto my Design and Make your own Perfume course
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