Herbal Perfume Base DIY Part 2

This is a follow up post to the one about making herbal perfume bases. After the tincture sits for about a month, it is ready to be strained and used as a perfume base. It can sit for longer than a month and potentially get a little stronger, but if you are like me and get antsy to get crafting, a month is long enough. I actually strained mine this time slightly before a full month was up, but I could tell from the scent and the color that it was ready. A note about the color~ when you make an herbal tincture it will inevitably take on the color of the herbs which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it may seem strange to put colored perfume on your body. The color does not show up on the body and I’ve never had it stain my clothes either so you don’t need to worry about that. If you do not like the idea of colored perfume, stick to essential oils in straight alcohol, or make an herbal oil instead because oils take on a lot less color. Here’s part two of making an herbal perfume base:

The final perfume I made with the 2 oz. spray bottle is the following:

50 drops ylang ylang

10 drops nutmeg

3 drops palo santo (because I’m out of sandalwood)

5 drops bergamot

This turned out to have a nice, fresh, gender-neutral, autumn day scent. If you watched the video you will know that I was thinking of adding jasmine but I’m just not really feeling jasmine-y this time of year. Nutmeg is a strong scent which is why there are only 10 drops while ylang ylang has 5 times as much, but the scent turned out to have a strong vanilla-nutmeg scent which just feels right for October. It could have really used some sandalwood but I improvised with the palo santo which is another essential oil that is extremely strong so only three drops of that one. The bergamot just gave it a light, happy finish as the only real top note in the mix.

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