Making Stuff

  

I’m a painter, and have just moved my studio from the “bonus room” in my house to a space at a new arts center. For the first time in years, I have room to work. I’ve played around with making room scents before, but it helps, a lot, to have a good-sized space.

Like many of you, I’m in a strange position regarding perfume reviews. The mainstream fragrances coming out now are deteriorating in quality. Just as perfume bloggers predicted a couple of years ago upon hearing about the new IFRA regulations, much of it is purely synthetic, and in spite of that, it doesn’t last long. Niche perfume, once the alternative, is often priced in the stratosphere now. Sure, I can order little tiny samples (.7 mls, something of a new standard). I don’t think these do a scent justice, though. They’re certainly not enough for a proper review, in which one experiences the scent for at least a few hours. So I’ve become more resourceful, trading and buying splits, and swapping.

Lately I’ve become more interested in essential oils. I’ve been mixing custom blends with them. I still have the vexing problem with botanicals; they don’t last on my skin. But these are ambient scents that can be used as hair or body oil, in a room diffuser, and so on.

Most people I know who “do” essential oils wear one or the other. It might be patchouli or lavender -- the two most common I’ve seen -- and they stick to that one. It might be an aromatherapy concept, like the use of lavender as a relaxant. They buy them already mixed, usually at health-food stores. 


I began to wonder about mixing custom blends. That’s what I’ve begun to do, combining botanicals I already have and even some aromachemicals for longevity, with jojoba oil, and testing the mixes in a small diffuser. Mine is about the size of a doughnut, with a warming element that plugs into an electrical outlet and a shallow well for the oil. It takes awhile, but I can scent a good-sized room this way. (In the case of orange blossom, a good-sized house!) When it’s time to leave, I’ll often pick up a few drops of the mixture on my fingertips and apply it to my hair or skin. Or I’ll wipe the well out with a paper towel, and crumple it to put into a drawer as a sachet, or just leave it on the entryway table as a sort of room sachet.

I’ve experimented with making a chypre base from the classic chypre ingredients -- landanum, oakmoss and bergamot, with a drop of patchouli. Or ambers, using the resins, and vanilla. Rose-based scents. And so on. It’s fun. It feels like play. 

There are all kinds of references and resources available; recipes, discussions of the ingredients and so on. There are botanicals companies who will sell you a sample, sometimes just a drop, for a couple of bucks. Since these are pure and can be mixed with quite a bit of perfumers alcohol or oil, it’s an economical way to learn. (I can’t imagine paying the going rate for quantity on orris butter, but I can afford a drop of it!) I think it also teaches you what professional perfumers have to go through, with their tiny ingredients budgets. 

I suspect that I’m not the only perfume blogger who does this. Once you get used to a life surrounded by fragrance, exploration just happens. 

How about you? Do any of you mix your own?

Resources for botanicals and essential oils: (there are many, these are just the ones I’ve used): Eden Botanicals, Anatolian Treasures and Snowdrift Farms (for perfumers alcohol) and The Perfumer's Apprentice, for just about everything. 

The Bible: Essence and Alchemy, by Mandy Aftel, and the Anya's Garden web site, from Anya McCoy.

The photo is from the classic Mel Brooks film "Young Frankenstein."