ESSENTIAL OILS from EMS.  Gonna make my own s

Good to hear! I'm doing the Â*same, I plan on making a perfume for my girlfriend for christmas, and tinkering around a bit for myself!

Edit: Where are you ordering your glassware to store your fragrances in?

Sounds like fun!

Six, what brand of vodka do you plan on using?

Well, I was just wondering what the difference would be between mixing w/ vodka or mixing w/ say rubbing alcohol. And unfortunately the only experience w/ vodka is drinking it instead of mixing it for cologne/perfume .

You shouldn't use rubbing alcohol, as it is denatured and has a smell of it's own. Frankly I'd recomend Everclear over Vodka, then filter it through a Brita filter if you have one. Three or four fast passes through and it should be even more pure!

I LOVE this guy!!!

Tom, don't use Vodka. Vodka is generally more expensive than perfumeurs alcohol, at least any Vodka that is worth buying. I use this perfumers alcohol:

http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/perfume.html

I need to start practicing blending more. I have been slacking :-(

SixCats - Check this post out for glass bottles and atomizers - http://www.basenotes.net/community/Y...num=1120691038

I did alot of searching and most of the sites recommended are excellent.

I think you will find that you can really come up with some great compilations if you expirement with variour ratios of essential oils to create chords. For example (Amber resin, benzoin , and patchouly ) make a nice warm woody basenote. Ive created many fragrances over the last 10 years . Many of them imo great but many more that didnt work out at all. Sometimes you wont know just how the longevity or the drydown is really going to develope until at least a month after bottling. Also, you will have to use a generous ammount of essential oils to get a truly tenacious scent that doesnt fade after a few hours. Dont be surprized if you initial results smell great out of the bottle but fade rather quickly. There is practically no way to create a fragrance using just essential oils that last like commercial fragrances do. Almost every fragrance created commercially uses synthetic derivatives to give the fragrance longevity. Dont be fooled by looking at the ( note pyramids ) in the basenote directory and think thats all thats in a particular fragrance. There is probablly 3 to 5 x that in aroma chemicals in there that are not readily available to the general public. But not to worry. You can create some truly nice scents using pure essential oils with a small percentage of carrier oils. Remember, thats how almost all fragrances were created up to the point when Chanel #5 was developed, which I believe to be the upitome of an aldehydic woody floral hands down. So get to it EMS and create some winners. It has been said that perfumery is 90% Imagination and 10% uhhhh something else but I forget now. Anyway.... go for it ! P.S Everclear WORKS BETER THAN VODKA [smiley=grin.gif]

I'm just starting to do this as well. One thing that i've found is quite handy is keeping a spreadsheet of all of the various combinations of scents you try, along with the precise # of drops of each and such.
My spreadsheet has the following categories

Oil 1 Â* #of drops Â* Oil 2 Â*#drops Â*Oil 3 Â*#drops Â*Mix method Â*Perceived tone Â*Add'l characteristics
----- Â* ----------- Â* ----- Â*--------- Â*----- Â*------- Â* ------------- Â* ---------------- Â* -----------------------


Perceived Â* Â* Â* 1-100 rating
use for this Â* Â* for perceived
blend Â* Â* Â* Â* Â* Â* use
------------ Â* Â* -----------------



Mix method defines what kind of oil it was mixed with and the amount of dilution (if any). Also, I occasionally mix oils for aromatherapy uses. When doing so I'll still record the results in my spreadsheet, and just put "water diffuser" for mix method.

Perceived tone is where I feel the particular combination would fit in a blend. This is not always evident by the ingredients used. A base note may be lifted to a low middle note with the inclusion of a new oil, for instance. It's good to note the perceived tone.

Add'l Characteristics is where I put all of my subjective notes and opinions regarding the combination.

Perceived use for this blend is what where I note what I imagine this blend is good for. For instance,for a mix of 1 part cinnamon to 3 parts patchouli I have "a nice round, energizing middle note" in this category.

Lastly, the 1-100 rating. This isn't necessary but I know it helps me categorize and recall what worked and didn't. Remember the rating is not just how much you like it, but how well you think it would do for it's perceived use. Lets say you have a note who's perceived use is a middle note (as the cinnamon and patchouli combo I noted is). Let's also say that the mix is indistinct and all of the smells blend together. Even if it smells good, you might put a low rating in the 1-100 area because you don't really want an indistinct middle note.

Just a few thoughts. So far this has worked for me - although I must admit I am just a beginner.

~Seth

hey Sixcats,

good for you- I hope all goes well for you. Your thread inspired me to start a new thread about buying aldehydes and synthetic molecules from places like Firmenich and IFF etc. I really want to start doing this myself, but I think the really good stuff lies in synthetics. Although its probably best to start with basics. I don't know if its ever crossed your mind, but you CAN buy specific molecules from these places... look at the websites...they have descriptions of each molecule and its properties. I think it would be cool to add some of these to a natural scent to give it that "lift" that they're always talking about. Any thought on this?

Indie

I know your taste in frags Six, and I'm curious to see what you'll come up with. However I'm pretty sure that using synthetics will not make your scent any less pure. I'd wager that Kouros is full of synthetics such as Eugenol and Limonene. New molecules are being discovered all the time. You can actually SMELL SOMETHING NEW FOR THE FIRST TIME. Put this up against vision. You can see something for the first time, but you can't see new colors. All the colors you're capable of seeing...you've already seen. With smells...somebody in a white lab coat can whip up a new molecule that smells like nothing you've ever experienced. I find that pretty darn exciting. The downside is that some of these molecules may be toxic, but that doesn't affect the primary thrill of experiencing something new.

And when fragrance companies list notes of a pyramid, they want to sound romantic and all. So they might say "fresh cut grass" rather than say cis 3-hexanol (or whatever) and one might get the impression that all the John Deere riding mowers in Grasse are dumping the fresh cut grass into giant distilling machines to extract the essence, when that is not the case. Its a simple , synthetic chemical. I, for one, have embraced the notion that a synthesized chemical in a vial may be more pure than anything crudely drawn laboriously from the sagging teat of nature.

I've been drinking. [smiley=beer.gif]

Keep me posted SIX! And good luck!

Indie

I'll bet its a real juggernaut!

wink wink, nudge nudge say no more!

KEEP US POSTED

Six,

A few months ago, i went to the library and got some books myself on the subject of frags; the science and the art. It was hard to find some of the stuff and most of it was really old (talking about musk deer and the like). I read Mandy Aftel's book on natural perfumery. It was a very good book. Interesting anecdotes on the the historical perspective of perfumery, sex and all that. A bit limiting in terms of eschewing synthetics, but nevertheless a good primer. I also snagged some books on simple organic chemistry just to refresh myself. In high school, I was TERRIBLE at chemistry, however when we studied organic chemistry, it clicked for me, while the rest of the class struggled. So I tried to catch up a bit on all that stuff.

There are some good books out there if you go to a library and really dig.

have fun!

Have a look at http://www.perfumersworld.com/ in the software section, they have a great application called The Perfumer's Workbook that is really handy for keeping track of your experiments.
It has a visual (pie chart) prediction of what will happen to the fragrance over time - you move the slider back and forth and you can watch the top notes dissapearing and the base notes becoming more prominent etc.

It also has some built in recipes for common fragrances to get you started. I have found it very useful, and I really must find the time to get back into this stuff, it really is good fun.

good luck and please post any good combinations you come up with.