Making your own special perfume guide

Making your own special perfume
By Mark H

Take care when buying a bottle as most of the charge goes to the packaging, advertising, sales profit and tax. Only a meagre percentage, in fact only around ten percent, is dedicated to the cost of the scents. So why spend so much when you can produce your own for a small fraction of the porice. Not only will you be able to save some money but you'll also get a real sense of satisfaction from the pursuit of the perfect perfume.

One of the major advantages of making your own perfume is that you don ' t have to worry about chemicals and preservatives going onto your sensitive skin. As you are more likely to work with natural ingredients, you don't have to worry about the potential negative effects of synthetic materials on your body.

However, an effort should still be taken when using

different essential oils. Some individuals may still have allergic reactions to different types of oils. It is accordingly important to know or be in tune with your own body chemistry first before experimenting with blending perfumes.

First, let's discriminate between the various types of perfumes. Fundamentally, a is a concoction of aromatic compounds diluted in alcohol and water. The amounts of aromatic oils dissolved in a compound determine if it can be called a or a cologne. Arranged from the greatest concentration of oils to lowest the outcome would be: perfume, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, eau de cologne and toilet water.

When we mention perfume, the blend of aromatic oils is from 25% to 40 %. Eau du parfum, meanwhile, is 15% - 30 % aromatics. Eau du Cologne has even lighter aromatic oil content. This style of scent generally has around 5% - 15 % aromatic compounds. Toilet water  has only 3% - 5 % aromatics. Toilet water is ideally used following a bath or shower.

When you formulate your own perfume, you get to choose which solvent you would like to dilute the mixture. Available to you are either jojoba or alcohol. Both have unique differences and benefits. Jojoba is excellent for blends as it never turns bad.

When you have created your own compound, it is important that you use the only on your pulse points. Anywhere further and you may overdo the scent. For diluting the mixture the conventional way, you use grain alcohol or a high proof vodka.  The trouble with alcohol is that you have to let the compound evolve. If you don't the scent will smell more like alcohol rather than a perfume. Normal proportions of alcohol and mixture is about three or four ml of the blend combined with five or 10 drops of alcohol.