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Making your own fragrance

Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba concocted their own exotic fragrances, and so can you

Personalised perfumes, toilet waters, body oils and room atomizers are easy to make. Light, wearable signature scents can affect more than personal moods and memories. They can be healing as well, reducing stress, energising one's spirit or evoking a romantic and sensual mood. And they are fun to make. You can almost always find what you need at a health food store.

First, decide how strong you want your fragrance. Perfumes are the strongest, containing 15 to 30 per cent essential oils diluted in a base of alcohol, with a small percentage of distilled water. Less potent toilet waters contain five to ten per cent essential oils, and colognes and body splashes may have one to two per cent.

Materials

• Your favourite pure essential oils (such as rose, lavender and sandalwood)
• Alcohol
• Fixatives (such as sandalwood, benzoin, myrrh or vanilla)
• Eyedroppers
• Small vials, bottles, jars

Any of the following alcohols may be used; the best are the highest proof, which contain the greatest concentrations of ethyl alcohol:

• 95 per cent grain alcohol (190 proof)
• Vodka (use highest-proof available)

Fixatives prolong a fragrance. They are ingredients added to a composition to lend their own unique scent and to 'fix' the other ingredients as well, retarding their overall rate of evaporation. Commonly used fixatives are:

• Sandalwood
• Benzoin
• Myrrh
• Vanilla
• Balsam of Peru

Other fixatives, particularly useful for oil and bath blends, creams and lotions, are:

• Tincture of benzoin
• Grapeseed oil
• Castor oil
• Liquid from Vitamin E gel caps

Rules of thumb

• Use glass containers (rather than plastic) for preparing and storing perfumes.
• Record, date and name each blend.
• Ageing your formula is necessary to smooth out and mellow the raw-ingredient smell, so allow your blend to age for a few days or weeks in a cool, dry, dark area.
• While constructing a formula, after adding each new essential oil, be sure to smell and check your recipe to get an idea of how each one changes it and how you might like to modify it in the future.
• Clean the eyedropper in alcohol or vodka between each addition of a new essential oil.

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