I have always wanted people to recognize me by my fragrance. Well that doesn’t happen because I never stick to a perfume Commitment phobia. For a perfume to become by signature fragrance, it has to be ME, my personality and not just smell nice. So I took it into my own hands determined to make my own scent…the home made inexpensive way! Today I’m going to write about one such method. We will keep the alcohol to water ratio at 70-30%. The percentage of essential oils would be 15%.
You Will Need:
- Essential Oils, Fragrance Oils like vanilla, lavender, rose, jasmine, orange citrus oil. Depends on what fragrance you like
- Distilled water
- 100% proof Vodka (since it has no smell of its own)
- Glycerine
- Glass jar
- Cute small dark bottle
- Coffee Powder to sniff
Step 1: Take a clean and sterilized glass jar and pour 1/4th cup of Vodka in it.
Step 2: Now just like the 3 notes of perfumes (Top Note, Middle Note, Base Note) you have to add scents in three layers to form these notes. First you will add the base note you wish to achieve. Then the middle note and lastly the top note.
Add 7-8 drops of the essential oil for your base note and swirl it. Smell some coffee to discern your nose and smell again to see if you are satisfied with the fragrance. If not, add a few more drops and smell again. Repeat the process with all the notes until you are satisfied with the fragrance. Keep the total of drops to 25-30.
Step 3: Seal the jar and store it in a cool dark place and let the fragrance age for sometime. This is to allow for the mingling of all the fragrances to create your unique smell. It can take a minimum of 2 days upto a month.
Step 4: Now take out the jar and smell it. It must have changed over the time. Tweak it again if you wish to change it or leave it if you are satisfied with the fragrance. Remember if you tweak it again, you have to store it again for some time like you did earlier.
Step 5: Now its time to dilute the fragrance. Add 2-3 tbsp of distilled water.
Step 6: Add 4-5 drops of glycerin. Glycerin makes the fragrance last longer once applied.
Step 7: Now pour all this mixture into a dark bottle. The dark tint helps save it from light.
Step 8: Shake before you use. And you have your own unique fragrance ready!
If you wish to make an Eau De Cologne: Add more distilled water to the solution. And add some more water and it becomes your Eau De Toilette.
If there is a particularly expensive perfume you wish to duplicate then just find all its notes and the scent family it belongs to use those fragrance oils to create it.
The scents can be of many types…floral, citrus, woody, etc. Here is a chart to help you out.
And one day you can have your own Perfume wardrobe! Perfume wardrobe? Are you kidding me!
TIP: For the first time, make smaller batches with lesser quantities of alcohol and essential oils to experiment. Write down the recipe when you are making the perfume. Write down how many drops of which essential oil you use. You don’t want to create the best ever fragrance only to forget the ratio you used!
