Episode 31: How to Make Your Own Natural Perfume

This episode Sara Janssen teaches you how you can use essential oils to create your own natural perfume. She will explain the general practices she follows in creating these scents as well as break down a few of her favorite combinations.

Worksheet

 

Transcript

All right, hello, my name is Sara Janssen and I am a Presidential Diamond in Texas. We are just outside of Austin in a little town called Dripping Springs. My husband’s name is Matt, and we have three little girls as well. And today I get to talk to you about one of my favorite things and that is how you can use oils as a natural perfume alternative. Who's excited? I know I am. 

Essential Oil as Perfumes

All right so it's important to know this. It's important to know that essential oils have been used as perfumes for a very, very long time. They've been around as perfumes since 2000 BC. And back when they were using essential oils as perfumes back then, it was well known that if you had essential oils on, that you were someone of great importance, right? So, as they would walk by, they would smell so delicious, people would take note because these were kings and queens and people in the know, right? So, ancient Egyptians were using them, and they were used as that status symbol. 

Somewhere along the way, we got confused. We got all confused and people started to try to mimic the smell of the natural plant for, probably, cost purposes, just ease of getting the smell into a perfume bottle, and chemists started to make these smells in a lab. And what that did is it confused our bodies. Because our bodies aren't used to working with things that aren't plant matter, right? Our bodies are plant matter, the oils are plant matter, and when you put something that's a chemical on it or in it as you're inhaling, your body goes, "Ah!" It kind of freaks out, and what you get then, is side effect and what we're finding over the years now that fragrances have been added to so many different things. 

Why Are Synthetic Fragrances Harmful? 

Synthetic fragrances, we're finding that they're causing quite a few health concerns. I'm gonna go through some of those things, some of the different things that it can do to your body, what to look for. But there's just absolutely in my opinion, absolutely no reason you need to use synthetic fragrance ever. And the more you start using essential oils and you really start using natural products throughout your whole life, you'll find that you may become more sensitive to those chemical scents that had kind of, deadened your senses after a while. 

So as you're looking at synthetic perfumes, it's important to know that 12–15 of those ingredients in that perfume, they're not even required to tell you that they're in there. That's scary to me. If you do your own research, which I would encourage you to do, you'll find that the reason that they started to do that was because they were protecting trade secrets, "trade secrets," but now with all of the science and different chemistry they can actually go backwards and find out what their competitor's using anyways! So there's really no reason for them not to label it. And so when you see the word fragrance on anything, and you research the company and you can't figure it out, if you can't figure it out, what it means is just hidden chemicals, usually. And so that's again why we want to show you this totally better way. 

Power of Scents

Scent is extremely powerful and we have such emotional connections with scent, don't we? If we've been using a perfume for maybe our whole life and we're connected to memories of that perfume. People that gave us that perfume, all these different memories, it might be really hard to switch it up. But nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth your health, and I promise you are going to find these blends that we're gonna talk about so effective and so easy, and your body is gonna thank you. Because what your body's gonna start telling you if you don't make a change, you're gonna have things happening in your body. Again, going back to just the minor things, like dizziness and confusion. I don't need any dizziness and confusion in my life. 

There's so many beneficial uses of these oils that you're putting this beautiful scent on you as a perfume and yet you're feeling more relaxed, you're feeling less anxious, you're feeling so many different things that sometimes you don't even know, "Oh wow, I just feel really great. "I feel better, I feel less unhappy today." And that is a side benefit of all of these oils. 

Pure-fume

So you can skip that perfume in a bottle, that synthetic scent and you can go straight to the plant. We have these little things, plants in a bottle. So much easier, and doTERRA oils have zero additives, none. We are, I would say, one of the very few companies that don't add synthetics to the oils. That's important to know. And if you want to know more about our quality and sourcing, definitely get yourself to sourcetoyou.com and check out how high of a quality we have in our oils. All right, so, let me just scroll through here. I want to make sure I don't forget to tell you anything. 

A lot of times you'll see these different aromas and natural essential oil aromas called pure-fume, instead of perfume. It's pure, right, it's pure-fume! And I'm gonna teach you how to make your own today. But I'm gonna give you a couple of different options. 

Magnolia Essential Oil Pure-fume

One that came out recently, and I don't have it on my desk, but it is Magnolia, and it's absolutely delightful. You know where, it's probably back in my purse and in my pocket and in my bathroom. It's everywhere because it's so easy. It's a highly sought-after perfume scent in the perfumery world, but you can get that straight plant smell right, and it's already in a bottle, it's already in a roller bottle. Isn't that awesome? 

Pure-fume Bottles

I'm gonna show you how to put these into cute little roller bottles like this. You can also get them in the doTERRA with your LRP, with your loyalty order. You can order roller balls but you can get 'em also from any of the oil accessories stores that you can find online. I have some really, really fun ones. Got these ombre ones. I have a really shimmery one. That one's really pretty. I even have, oh see, now there's little people taking things off my desk. I have one that's covered in bamboo. So there's so many different ways and you can find empty perfume bottles, glass bottles at say like you know different craft stores and you can put them and they can look so pretty. 

Patchouli Essential Oil as Pure-Fume

So the two different ways that you're gonna be able to make your own perfume scent it is you just use what doTERRA has already put in a bottle for you. My own personal favorite: straight patchouli. Straight patchouli, right here, I just put it right on me. Every single day, you don't need much. You don't need much. 

We're gonna talk about base, mid, and top notes, but patchouli is definitely a base note. It lasts all day long, all day long. And it changes with the chemistry of your body. Which is kinda cool because it smells different on everybody. 

And funny story is that a lot of people see the word patchouli and they're like, "I don't wanna smell like the woods, "I don't wanna smell like a hippie." I'm like, "Well, what exactly does a hippie smell like?" Well it smells like Patchouli! But here's the thing. Most people have never smelled CPTG­^® Patchouli. Totally different than the synthetic blends that you're gonna get in, say, even your health food store is gonna have a lot of synthetic added. So I'm gonna encourage you guys, even if you think that you don't like Patchouli, you might just like it. 

And if you don't like the heaviness, you can add a citrus to it. Okay? So add Patchouli, add Citrus Bliss^® to it. Patchouli and Lime, Patchouli and Bergamot is delicious. There are so many different oils, that without even taking the time to make a roller bottle, you can just slap a few on. 

More Pure-fume Blend Ideas

Some of my favorites are Passion^® and Whisper^® together. I just go blop blop blop blop on either wrist, and then I rub it all around my neck and I'm good to go. I don't even need to get it out of a separate bottle. 

Jasmine, over the top obsessed with that. Jasmine and Frankincense, both of those are already in touch rollers so you can just roll 'em. I put 'em both in one hand, 'cause I don't have time to mess around. Put both in one hand, roll them up and down the insides of my arms, get it on my neck. That is just such a calming blend. 

All of these flowers, Frankincense, Patchouli, they are incredibly grounding oils. So isn't that a good idea as you run out the door to your job, to take your kids to school, as you're run out for a fun evening, just to ground yourself and really feel calm and focused? Yes, I'm gonna answer that for you, yes. 

Okay, my last one that I'm gonna tell you that has been wildly popular is Sandalwood, Citrus Bliss, and Whisper. Those three together. I don't know what it is. Sandalwood has my heart forever. I love it, love it, love it. 

And I'm gonna show you a little trick because a lot of people are like "I love sandalwood, but I can't get it out of the bottle. It takes forever." See this little dropper top right there? That's what you want is the little, the little dropper top because what you're gonna be able to do is just bloop, and they have 5 mL dropper tops and they have 15 mL dropper tops that you can find out there. So definitely get yourself a dropper. 

Okay. I am going to, first of all I'm gonna make sure my computer doesn't die. There's always something, right? Always something. I think I'm gonna blow through this so fast and you guys are, we're not gonna die. Let's not die. Let's make some perfume before that happens. 

How To Make DIY Natural Essential Oil Perfume

The thing you want to know about making blends. 'Cause you don't want to make a blend that you hate, right? You don't want to make a blend, put your precious oils in it and be like oh, that is not going on my body. And you put it away in a drawer. You don't want that to happen so I'm gonna give you some simple tips to make sure that you love it every single time. 

Base Notes, Middle Notes, and Top Notes in Perfume

So all you need to keep in mind is there are base notes, mid notes, and top notes. And it's a little bit different ratio so that you don't totally overwhelm the scent with say 20 drops of Patchouli and like one drop of Bergamot. You want to do it in a little bit thought into it. However, I don't want you guys to be afraid. Don't be afraid to try something new. To mix it up a little bit. If you make a blend and it's to the perfect ratio, and you don't like it, but you want it to smell a little bit more like this oil, put that in. You don't have to follow exactly. But I'll give you guidelines. 

Fairy Blend 

The first thing I'm going to show you is a blend. I'm not gonna make this one, but I'm just gonna tell you this one's called the fairy blend. Because fairy's live in the bottle after you make it. For real! Like you will smell it and go "Oh, what is that?" And I never would have thought to put these together. But the fairy blend. Get 5 mLs or let's do a 10 mL. So I'll double these for you. Is 10 drops each of Ylang Ylang, which is a yummy floral scent, Fennel, and Spearmint. Who would have thought? I wouldn't have thought to put those together. But it smells absolutely divine. 

Now, 10, 10, 10 doesn't really go with the ratio, does it? Like that I'm gonna tell you which is kinda like five to 20% and then like in the middle you have 40 to 60% and then you have five to 20% on the other end. It doesn't really go with that but that's the magic of it is that you can't screw it up. If you love it, go with it. So the next one, if fairy's aren't your thing, right. It's not for everybody. Not everybody's gonna want Ylang Ylang on them. I absolutely love it. It's super calming as well. But I'm gonna give you a more woodsy, earthy blend to try too. 

And since I'm a little low on battery what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna tell you. I actually made this up a little bit earlier and I'm not gonna drip drop every single one of 'em in here. But what you're gonna do is you're gonna just take your roller ball. You're gonna just pop off the lid and I love metal. Just like doTERRA has the metal roller balls on all of their touch roller balls, that just goes on much smoother. I like those a lot. You could even recycle a touch roller ball into a custom perfume blend. So if you don't have empty roller balls on hand you can do that. 

Tree Happy 

So what I do is before I even start, I do a little bit of Fractionated Coconut Oil in the bottom just to kinda grab onto the oils as I'm putting them in and they're not flashing off and dissipating into the air. And so pay attention, I'm gonna give you a little bit more woodsy scent and then I'll go over the ratios, okay. Um where did it go? Okay. I'm gonna call this one tree happy. Get it, like be happy but tree happy, okay? 

So we have the base notes of Patchouli, Sandalwood, and Frank. I did 3 Patchouli, 4 Sandalwood, 2 Frankincense. 

And then the mid note of Cypress. And Siberian Fir. And I did 10 Cypress and 5 Siberian Fir. 

And I did 5 drops of Clary Sage to top it off with that top note. 

And then I topped it off with Fractionated Coconut Oil. 

So you're gonna put the oils in there. You're gonna not have it all the way to full. Then you're gonna just tip it, don't spill it. Just very carefully fill it with Fractionated Coconut Oil. And you're good to go. And shake it up. Roll it on. 

I'm gonna gift this one to my husband because it is so yummy. I absolutely love it. And if you are a big fan of Patchouli or Sandalwood, put more of that in there. You're gonna love it. 

Base Note

Okay, so what is this base, mid, top note thing? Let's talk about that. So the base note is where you want to start. You really want to be in love with your base and your mid notes. So pick your favorite base and mid notes right away. And then you're gonna just top it off with one of the lighter citrus, floral type scents. 

So a base note is a fixative. It takes the chemical components of all the other oils and it grabs them and it holds onto them. And it really makes your scent, okay? And then 15 to 20% of your blend will be those base notes. Some of those are gonna last for 24 hours, so you really do want to love them. 

For me, that’s like Patchouli and Sandalwood and Rose and Vetiver, Cedar Wood, Frankincense.  Copaiba's a great base because it doesn't have a super strong scent so you can kinda get your other notes in there. 

Mid Note

The mid note is really the experience of the oil. Okay so make sure you really love your mid note. That's the heart of your scent. 50 to 80% that can make up. So when you're building that you might one to have more than one mid note. Because you might be adding a lot of that oil. 

Black Pepper, Cardamom, Fennel, Douglas Fir, Geranium Rosemary. Rosemary and Marjoram together are actually really beautiful. Siberian Fir. 

Top Note

And then you're gonna top it off with that top note. The top note is what you're gonna smell initially right when you put it on. That's gonna be your first impression. 

But eventually because they are, they're like citruses and things like Eucalyptus, Grapefruit, Lemon, Lemongrass, Lime, Peppermint, Spearmint, Tangerine, they're gonna flash off pretty quickly. And then your mid note is gonna shine through. That's why you want to love your mid note. And then the base is gonna really stick it all together and stay on there for about 24 hours. 

So see how amazingly effective it is. Sometimes I will put my essential oil on. Especially Patchouli or Sandalwood and I will be out at the end of the day and people are still commenting. And I promise you, people will comment. Like "What is that smell? "It is absolutely amazing." It's Patchouli. It's doTERRA. You gotta get the good stuff. Because they've just never smelled anything like it before. 

Creating Your Own Scents

So as you think about creating your own custom scents, you guys are gonna get addicted. Because it's so fun to start experimenting and coming up with something that's only yours. You're not gonna smell like anyone else. It's gonna be so unique. And custom scents make really special gifts for your friends and your family. For birthdays or anniversaries. And you can really customize it to who they are. And that's fun. And you can find different roller bottles. And you can bling them up with stickers and washi tape. There's all kinds of different fun things that you can do as you create your natural perfume alternative. All right you guys, I hope this has been helpful for you. Have fun exploring all of the different aroma combinations. Bye friends.