Making your own perfume

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I bought a lovely book from the local charity shop called 'The Fragrant Pharmacy'. There's a section called 'the still room' which talks about making your own perfume by creating a mix of essential oils and mixing with alcohol and water to get a distinct and quite natural perfume. I was thinking about giving it a go.

However a lot of essential oils are quite pricey so want to try and make a good go of it. Has anyone made their own perfume and do you have any tips? Also does anyone know of any good 'recipes' for advice on which oils go together for base, middle and top notes?

I used to do a lot of different things with essential oils and my biggest piece of advice is DON'T buy cheap. Proper, pure essential oils can be wildly expensive depending on what you buy (rose, jasmine and neroli being VERY pricey) but you get what you pay for. The cheap stuff that masquerades as pure essential oil is not, it's mixed with carrier oils to dilute it and make it cheaper. Shop around and check out reviews and compare prices, don't be afraid to ask retailers questions about their products to make sure you are getting the right stuff.

Thanks onelittlelady. I've found a fantastic place called NHRorganics that does really good oils. Not cheap but very good quality I think. I also like Tisserand and a company called Baldwins.

I especially like rose and sandalwood which are ££ but if I can get the perfume right much better than shop bought stuff.

When I went in holiday this year I left my perfumes at home and just wore a yankee candle rose of Morocco oil. It was a room fragrance oil and now sadly discontinued.

I must see if I can buy something similar.

I don't want to discourage you but many essential oils are fleeting on skin (especially citruses) and quite a few are also known contact allergens. I have a lot of professionally made natural perfumes and none of them seems to last more than an hour on my skin. Synthetics are really useful in extending the wearing time and broadening the available nuances. So proceed with caution!

Mandy Aftel's Essence and Alchemy is the classic introduction to natural perfumery. I have some of her perfumes and they too are fleeting...

The yankee candle one was lovely, I put it in my hair, on my skin and mixed it with lotion and put on my feet whilst on holiday. It was meant to be used as a refresher fragrance for pot pourri!

I agree though that it could have caused an allergic reaction and I was just lucky.

I went on a perfume-making workshop at this place. It was really interesting, and I learned a lot about how to put fragrances together. They also supply (mail order) all the essential oils, alcohols, vials etc. you might need.