Thursday, November 27, 2008

How to Make Floral Perfume (Perfume Atomizer)

Perfume Atomizer

Walking through the mall, a delicious scent wafts out of one store and entices you. It's not coming from the food store, but the perfume store. After a long, hard walk past over-priced perfumes you wish, desperately, that you could make some of these things yourself. Now you can. While finding the right concoction will take time, here is how to get started.



Step 1

Make perfume the easy way. Place the cheesecloth, which is a cotton-like cloth, into the bottom of the bowl and let the ends hang out over the sides.

Step 2

Fill the bowl with flowers blossoms. Place the flower blossoms on top of the cheesecloth and dump the water in, making sure the flowers are completely covered. Let this sit covered overnight. Some sample flower blossoms include lavender, lilac, orange blossoms, honeysuckle, roses or anything that has a strong scent.

Step 3

Squeeze the water from the cheesecloth into a small pot, then boil the water until there is only a small amount left (about a teaspoon). Let it cool and then put it into the perfume bottle. This will only last about a month.

Step 4

Make oil-based perfume, which is the second type of perfume. Add all of the floral essential drops together. If you're only using one type of flower oil, you will want to add several drops instead of just one. On the other hand, if you are using several types of flower oils, one drop should do. You may have to experiment to find the perfect combination of oils for you. Some people like it strong, while others want the scent to be barely noticeable.

Step 5

Stir in the other ingredients. Mix the citrus-based oil, such as tangerine oil, in with the flower oil along with the jojoba oil, the vanilla extract and, if you want it, some drops of vitamin E extract.

Step 6

Pour the mixture into a bottle. Because it is oil-based, this will last longer than the other perfume, especially if you use the vitamin E extract and if you keep the lid on tightly.

Step 7

Sample the perfume before you wear it in public. You may want to smell it after it has been sitting quietly for a few hours to make sure you like the scent. If it's too strong, or not strong enough, you can modify it.

Article and Image source : eHow

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Sunday, November 23, 2008

How to Make Essential Oils (Perfume Atomizer)

Perfume Atomizer

Essential oils can be quite expensive to buy so I though I would cover how you can make many of them at home.

Firstly, what is an essential oil? The formal definition for essential oil is that it is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid that contains volatile aromatic compounds from flowers and plants. In pure layman's terms it's the concentrated smelly stuff from flowers!

Most essential oils are made commercially by distillation. In this process the raw plant material, which can be in the form of flowers, bark, leaves, stems, roots or seeds, is placed on a rack above the water in a still. When the water is heated, the steam passes through the flowers vaporizing the complex volatile compounds. These vapors then pass through a cooling coil and condense back into liquid form. The essential oil itself then forms a film on the top of the liquid. It is then separated by skimming. The remaining water underneath the oil is a product known as a hydrosol and is often sold in this form as rose water or lavender water.

Unless you live in West Virginia and have a cousin with a still this probably isn't a practical method to use at home. Luckily distillation is a fairly modern method of producing essential oils so we have some more traditional alternatives for making our own fragrance oils.

Enfleurage is the process of placing flower petals or similar plant material onto trays of odourless vegetable oils which will absorb the flower's volatile essential oils. You can use a variation of the technique to make your own essential oils. Although this doesn't produce oils as concentrated as you can purchase, this is fairly easy to do at home given the raw materials.

You can use a variety of vegetable oils in this process including olive oil, sweet almond oil or refined jojoba oil.

How to make essential oils:

You will need:

Half a cup of oil

Four cups of tightly packed flowers (see instructions)

A wide-mouth jar such as a mason jar

A wooden mallet or similarA zipping plastic bag

Some cheesecloth for filtering

You will need four cups of flowers picked over the course of a week for the best results.

Put one cup of the flowers into the plastic bag and expel as much of the air as you can before sealing. Bruise the flowers in the bag with a wooden mallet. The idea behind putting them in a plastic bag first to cut down on the mess and to avoid losing any of the material. Don't bash them to a pulp, this isn't necessary, just hit the bag a dozen times gently.

Mix the flower material with the oil well and place it into the jar. Seal the jar and put it into a warm place for about 48 hours. A sunny window ledge or a warm spot in the kitchen is fine. The warmer the spot, the less time they need to be left but don't overdo the warming or you may damage the oils.

Filter the mixture through the cheesecloth and return the oil to the jar. Discard the filtered flower material.

Take the next cup of flowers and repeat the bruising process. Mix this batch with the oil from step one and leave in a warm place for another 48 hours or so.

Repeat twice more with the next two cups of flowers.After the final straining, transfer the oil to a storage bottle and keep in a cool, dark place. Colored bottles are ideal for storage. This will keep for up to a year.

This whole process to make your own essential oil will take a week or so so isn't as quick as the distillation process but of course doesn't involve the expense of building or buying a still.

Perfume Atomizer

Monday, November 17, 2008

How to Make a Natural Perfume (Perfume Atomizer)

Perfume Atomizer


  1. Use the basic formula of 15% to 30% essential oil, 70% to 80% of pure grain alcohol, such as vodka, and 5% of distilled or bottled spring water to make perfume. Essential oil can be replaced with fragrance oil for a cheaper quality and price perfume. Fragrance oils however are not natural and do not make a natural perfume. Essential oil can easily be found in a craft store or health food store. Craft store 'essential oils' are most often not natural either, but are fine if being all natural does not matter to you. Store your perfume in a small glass or plastic container. You can buy a container with a sprayer at almost any local craft store. You might also be able to find vintage perfume bottles at thrift stores or flea markets.

  2. Note that you will have to play around with the oils to create the perfect scent. To start, try mixing ¼ cup of straight vodka with 5 drops of an essential fragrance or oil of your choice. Depending on how strong you want the perfume, you can let the mixture stand for as little as 48 hours all the way to a month. The longer it stands, the stronger it will be. After your perfume has sat for your preferred time, add 2 tablespoons of the diluted water. If the perfume is too strong for you, you can add more water to get your desired scent strength. To make your scent last longer, add a tablespoon of glycerin to your perfume mixture. Glycerin is a neutral, colorless, thick liquid. It can be found anywhere soap making supplies are found. When added to water and alcohol, glycerin remains liquid and helps the other ingredients dissolve faster and better.
  3. Remind yourself that when you are ready to start combining fragrance/essential oils for a scent that is completely unique, understand that there are three different notes in scented oil. The first is base notes, which will stay longest on your skin. Base notes include oils such as vanilla, cinnamon, and sandalwood. The second of the notes are middle notes, which add to the scent for a while, but not as long as the base notes. These oils include lemon-grass, geranium, neroli, and ylang-ylang. The last of the notes are the top notes which do what they say, they top off the scent. The top notes do not last as long as the other two notes, but add to the scent significantly. The top notes include oils such as rose, lavender, jasmine, bergamot, and orchard. When making a perfume of more than one scent, add the base note oil first. Follow the base note with the middle note oil, and finish with the top note oil.

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