All-Natural Perfume Making: Fragrances to Lift Your Mind, Body, and Spirit

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Master your own custom perfume blends with ingredients to benefit your mind, body, and emotions in All-Natural Perfume Making.

Just like magic, turn botanical herbs, flowers, and essential oils into wonderful-smelling, healthy, and sustainable perfumes. In All-Natural Perfume Making, author and herbalist Kristen Schuhmann guides beginning perfumers in the art and techniques of crafting oil-based, alcohol-based, and solid perfumes. Learn the history and traditional benefits of certain scents as you create your own unique blends from a variety of plant-based ingredients.

In addition to smelling good,natural scents can be a powerful self-care tool to benefit mental and emotional health. Feeling anxious? A blend of vanilla, lavender, cedarwood, and neroli can help relax frazzled nerves. Have a big test coming up? Boost your brain power with rosemary, sweet orange, and peppermint. Once you’ve grasped the techniques in All-Natural Perfume Making, the possibilities are endless as you mix, layer, and experiment with natural scents.

Perfect for the beginner who wants to create their own signature scents without the use of harsh chemicals, this book provides a solid base on the philosophy and methods of crafting all-natural fragrances that not only smell fantastic but can add to your well-being.

From the Publisher

Natural Perfume Materials

Essential oils play a huge role in natural perfume making, but the options for infusing your perfume with other natural scents are endless! Before you begin, it’s important to understand the basic definitions of the ingredients, since there are many substances that may seem similar, but are used in different ways and proportions. For example, rose oil, rose hip oil, rose essential oil, rose absolute, rose water, and rose fragrance are all different substances. Although they all originate from the same rose plant, they are each distinct materials with different uses and benefits. Here’s a quick primer that will come in handy as you begin mixing scents and infusing oils.

Just Chill

Lavender is the best-known relaxing scent, but many of the essential oils flower blossoms of orange trees, were traditionally used in bridal bouquets to combat nerves. Neroli is an expensive essential oil but can also be found as an absolute or a flower water (also known as “orange blossom water”). Vanilla is a relaxing scent. Cedar is known to be grounding, which can take one out of the realm of racing thoughts and assist in relaxation and perhaps even sleep.

Creativity Boosters

Bay has a long history in encouraging creativity. The herb was at one time put under pillows to encourage creativity while sleeping, and bay laurel loans its name to poet laureates, Nobel laureates, and all other laureates everywhere. Laurel crowns are symbols not only of victory, but also of nobility, graduation, and intellectual achievements. The scent is most recognized in bay rum cologne but can be used in any perfume to support creative and/or intellectual endeavors. Rosemary has been known to boost creativity, and peppermint helps with feeling creatively blocked or stuck in a rut.

Energy Support

Scents can be energizing wake-up helpers, just as they can also be relaxing sleep-inducers. For pick-me-up energy, reach for any of the citrus oils, the mints (especially peppermint), or rosemary. These natural scents are energy-promoting without the pitfalls of other energy sources, such as caffeine.

What to Know Before You Blend

Essential oils are potent, so it’s best to work with them in a well-ventilated room and to always keep bottles capped when you’re not using them. If you feel nauseous, light-headed, or get a headache while blending, get fresh air and drink water. One of the special properties of essential oils compared to chemical fragrances is that they always move in and out of our bodies in a natural, dynamic flow. Because of this, a natural perfume scent will not last as long as a chemical fragrance no matter how strong you make it. It is just the nature of essential oils to dissipate into the air more quickly than artificial fragrances. Simply make the blend the potency that you like and plan to reapply it throughout the day. Learn more about layering as a way to make scents last longer in chapter 3.

Plant Magic

If essential oils aren’t your preference, you can also craft natural perfumes using only fresh or dried flowers or herbs and a base of oil or alcohol (also known as a tincture or extract). Perfumes made without essential oil will have a subtler aroma, but the benefits are still there.

I love the classic scent of bay rum, which began as a simple herbal extract used by long-ago sailors as a cologne. They used what they had available and simply combined bay leaves with rum. You can also go the extra mile by combining essential oils with herbal oils or extracts to create a more multidimensional perfume with greater depth and benefits.

Creating an herbal base for your perfume infuses the carrier with all the characteristics of the chosen herbs, not just the scent. Since the herbal base is already scented, you can use fewer drops of essential oils. This method really ups the ante on your scent crafting, and can elevate your handmade perfumes to a whole new level.

Hydrosols and Flower Waters

Hydrosols and flower waters can be added to any alcohol-based perfume and are an inexpensive way to add a light, faint scent. They’re also great for refreshing toners or body splashes because the fragrance is much more delicate than those of herbal extracts or essential oils.

Hydrosols are made of the water from the steam that separates essential oils during the distilling process, so they carry a bit of the essence of the plant, along with some of its scent. You can purchase hydrosols online or at your local natural food store.

Flower waters are made in a different way, using plants and distilled water, but they can be used in the same way as hydrosols. Making a flower water at home looks a lot like making tea. There is a hot method and a cold method.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ becker&mayer! books (March 23, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 128 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0760369143
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0760369142
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.17 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.35 x 0.65 x 9.3 inches