Walking through the perfume section of a department store can trigger a headache, especially for those sensitive or even allergic to fragrances. Many scents are cloying and overwhelming. Plus, there are some nasty ingredients in those commercial perfumes that you’re spritzing unto the skin.
Essential oils, especially soft and warm fragrant oils like sandalwood and vanilla, offer a naturally calming, anxiety-easing aroma. The added bonus is it can also help moisturize and soothe the skin while making you smell delightful.
Different Application Methods for DIY perfumes
You can apply homemade essential oil perfumes in three ways: by spraying, by a roller bottle, or by a solid perfume. To keep your skin safe from adverse effects, use caution when applying any blend containing citrus oil to a part of your body exposed to sunlight since citrus oils are photosensitive. It’s recommended to apply it to areas that will be covered with clothing.
Spray perfume
This is the most common way to apply essential oil perfumes. Spraying the perfume is also the easiest way to make yourself smell nice and good. You can get small and compact bottles that are easy to carry around and allow you to make smaller batches of fragrances or get bigger bottles for the blends you love to apply.
Roll-on perfume
Using a roller bottle is another popular option for perfumes. Usually, roller bottles are used for therapeutic blends other than perfumes, but it’s a fantastic way to carry around your scent and easily apply it to your pulse points whenever you want to.
Solid perfume
Solid perfume is a little less common method of creating perfumes with essential oils. The reason it’s less expected is that there are a few more steps and ingredients in making this type of perfume. Unlike perfumes in bottles, solid perfumes are in a solid, waxy state. It uses a type of wax that’s melted initially, giving the cream its foundation. Fragrance and scents are added after the wax is melted. The finished product looks like a balm. The benefit of having a solid perfume is it won’t leak, and it often comes in a stronger scent. All you need to do is take a finger or two, gently swipe it into the surface of the wax, and rub it on your body.
Making your Own Perfume Recipe
Creating your own unique scent is easy to do with little knowledge about perfumes. It’s best to start with a maximum of three essential oils when making your own scent blends, as it will allow you to get a good feel of how different scents smell together. Once you get the hang of it, you can start adding more.
A basic, well-structured perfume has bottom or base notes, the middle notes, and the base notes. The top notes are the scents your nose will pick up on first. It also fades the easiest, and it must make around 15-30% of your blend. Middle notes bond the top and bottom notes together. An excellent proportion for middle notes is about 50%. Meanwhile, base notes must make at least 20% of your blend, as these are the aromas that linger the most. It needs to be used with the most caution.
When making perfumes with essential oils, perfume fixatives can help slow down the degradation of more volatile oils. This helps cause fewer changes in the scent as you wear it by slowing down evaporation rates. When used in trace amounts, essential oil fixatives do not only help retain the scent of the perfume but also add to their unique scent note.
How to Create Liquid Perfume
Creating a perfume in a liquid state is easy and fun! You need to experiment with scents and see how well they blend with each other, but if you don’t want to waste a lot of essential oils, you can always follow a tried-and-tested recipe and tweak it as you see fit. Here’s how you can make a perfume to fill your bottles.
For an atomizer bottle:
Choose a 30 mL dark glass perfume spray bottle. When dealing with essential oils, dark glass is the best storage. Pour a teaspoon of witch hazel or a clean spirit like vodka to help the water blend with the oils. Add around 30 drops total of your essential oils mixture (complete with top, middle and base notes), and let them dissolve for a few minutes. After this, you can add 15mL of distilled water. Shake it gently, then let it sit for a while before using.
For a roll-on bottle:
Use the same measurements and procedure, but replace half of the distilled water with a carrier oil, like jojoba oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, or almond oil.
How to Create a Solid Perfume
The ingredients include less water and more wax for solid perfumes, as solid perfumes are waxy and oily. The amount of ingredients will depend on your container and the number of solid perfumes you want to make. You may want to put it on metal slide tin containers, jars, lip balm tubes, lockets, and even old Altoids mints containers.
Melt the beeswax in a double boiler over low heat to make your solid perfume. Once fully melted, stir in a carrier oil like jojoba, almond oil, or very mildly scented olive oil. Keep the mixture warm, which is essential before adding the essential oils because these oils can be damaged by excessive heat. If the beeswax and carrier oil mixture are too hot, wait until it cools to below 120 degrees before stirring in the essential oils. Mix all ingredients thoroughly before pouring the mixture into your containers. Wait for it to harden completely before use.
DIY Sandalwood and Vanilla Perfume Recipes
Now that you know how to make liquid or solid perfumes, it’s time to try some awesome recipes! If you prefer scent blends that either contains sandalwood and vanilla, here are some recipes you might like:
Musky and silky solid perfume recipe
This blend of musky sandalwood, silky vanilla, sweet grapefruit, and spicy bergamot will soothe your senses. Whip up a batch of solid perfume for yourself or to gift to your loved ones.
- 4 tablespoons grated beeswax
- 4 tablespoons carrier oil (jojoba, almond, or mildly scented olive oil)
- 27-32 drops sandalwood essential oil
- 27-32 drops vanilla oil
- 25-30 drops grapefruit essential oil
- 20-25 drops bergamot essential oil
Floral perfume recipe
Want a soothing vanilla scent with floral notes? This light, upbeat blend of lavender, jasmine, and vanilla would be the perfect scent for the summer.
- 15 drops jasmine essential oil
- 10 drops lavender essential oil
- 5 drops vanilla absolute oil
Sexy and sensual perfume recipe
Want to impress someone and have them leaning in close to you? A blend of nutmeg, blood orange, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang can ignite some flirty conversations.
- 10 drops sandalwood essential oil
- 8 drops ylang ylang essential oil
- 8 drops blood orange essential oil
- 4 drops nutmeg essential oil
Warm floral perfume recipe
Sandalwood and vanilla blend beautifully together, and if you add rose to your DIY vanilla perfume, it offers a warm and lovely floral aroma.
- 10mL vanilla-infused jojoba oil
- 8 drops sandalwood oil
- 2 drops rose absolute oil
Spicy floral perfume recipe
Want a subtle but mysterious spicy scent? Mix in sandalwood with rose and bergamot, and you’ll get a fantastic signature scent.
- 5 drops bergamot
- 4 drops sandalwood in jojoba oil
- 2 drops rose absolute
Flirty floral perfume recipe
Make them lean heads while you walk by and captivate anyone who’s in proximity with a sweet and flirty combination of vanilla, lavender, bergamot, ylang-ylang, and clary sage.
- 3 drops lavender
- 3 drops bergamot
- 2 drops vanilla in jojoba oil
- 2 drops clary sage
- 1 drop ylang ylang
Citrus bliss perfume recipe
This silky and citrusy blend offers a heavenly aroma that will get you compliments left and right.
- 5 drops vanilla in jojoba oil
- 3 drops lime
- 2 drops lemon
Spicy and musky perfume recipe
Clove can easily overpower a blend and gives off a lasting spicy aroma, so go slow when adding it to your mix. This spicy and musky blend is warm and inviting.
- 5 drops bergamot
- 4 drops sandalwood in jojoba oil
- 2 drops vanilla in jojoba oil
- 1 drop clove