How to Make Perfume With Essential Oils

This project started a few years ago – in 2008 to be exact. And before we go any further, I have a confession to make. I'm not a perfume kind of gal. I tend to crinkle my nose up at most commercially made perfumes.

Obviously, the logical thing to do with an attitude like that is to try and create a non-nose-crinkling perfume.

I succeeded. More than once.

It's Entirely Possible 

And here's the good news. Making your own perfume is easy as pie.

Nope. That's not true.

It's actually much easier than pie. All it takes is a small bottle, pure alcohol, and essential oils.

Despite the picture gracing the top of this post, it's recommended to use dark glass bottles (I couldn't find any cool looking dark glass bottle pics, and my own bottles are so far from sexy-looking that you wouldn't be even the slightest bit inspired to give this a try if I showed them to you.

Oh all right, they look like this. (See? not sexy).

These are the bottle sizes my supplier has in stock. They're actually quite functional for the inital phase and you can order them right here, but let's face it; there's no wow factor in the looks department.

Making Perfume: the Process is Easy Peasy

Here are the proportions for 8 ml (0,27 fluid oz) of perfume
4 ml (0,13 fluid oz) pure alcohol
4 ml essential oils (about 80-95 drops)

Put the alcohol into the bottle. Mix the essential oils in a small glass bowl and let them sit for approximately a minute and 'get to know each other'. Then transfer the mixture to the bottle through a small funnel and close the bottle. That's it!

OK, not quite. Now the perfume needs time to mature. Keep the bottle out of the sun and away from direct heat for approximately 2-6 months, giving it a turn once in a while to mix the ingredients. Be sure to do the occasional nose test to follow how it is maturing. To your surpise (and hopefully delight), the scent becomes richer, deeper and more complex as your blend matures. The scent will change quite a bit along the way, and it is fun to follow the process. I've had some scents that started out as one thing, changed radically, then come back almost full circle by the time they had matured. Others changed so far from the initial mix that I would have sworn someone had switched labels on me. Working with plant-based ingredients like essential oils will do that. They really do have a life of their own.

Composing The Scent: The Part That Takes Practice

Kind of like a musical chord, a perfume is a mix of base notes, middle notes and top notes. Every essential oil is categorized as either a top, middle or base note. The top notes are what first 'greets your nose' – the first scent impression. Middle notes 'come through' afterwards and get their staying power from the base notes, which become evident after having been on the skin over a period of time. Some essential oils are borderline and function as both base and/or middle notes or middle/top notes. The possiblities of pairing and mixing them are endless, why composing the scent is the part that takes the most practice. You can use as few as three components, but most perfumes are built up of many many parts. I am still a novice in this area, so my most complex scent has only 8 different oils.

Therefore: start with a few bottles (and making very small amounts) – so you can experiment with several things simultaneously.

Tip: Keep notes of all of your endeavors (even the failures) and label every bottle with the date and name of your mix. When you do create your very own perfect scent, it will be a snap to go back to your notes and see exactly how many drops of each essential oil you used and how long it took until the perfume was fully matured. I still have my very first attempt standing around (from 2008) and it actually took a full year to mature, but the scent has remained steady ever since.

Have fun!