The information below is a simple guide for you to get started making your own perfumes, colognes and toners, but it must be kept in mind that it is easier to add more essential oils to a blend to make the fragrance stronger, than it is to dilute the blend in order to tone the fragrance down. For this reason it is better to rather add too little of an oil, and to top up later if you are looking for a stronger fragrance. The links on your right will take you to our recipes.

One cardinal rule you should always follow, is to write down the recipe, as you are mixing it, as it often happens that a person would prepare a wonderful fragrance, only to find that they cannot remember the quantities or the oils used in the mixture.

When mixing your fragrance you should use glass containers, as some plastic containers and instruments do tend to retain fragrance particles. For mixing the blend never use a metal object, but rather use a glass rod.

After you have used your mixing equipment, wash very well with a strong soapy solution, dry, wipe down with alcohol to remove all fragrance traces, wash again, rinse in clean water and dry for next use.

For storing your mixed fragrances buy blue or amber glass bottles, and if they have cork stoppers you would need to seal the cork stopper with paraffin wax to prevent oxidation, and if they are equipped with screw tops make sure that the tops have liners.

Essential oils are either added to alcohol or a Carrier oil base when making perfumes at home. The alcohol to use is ethanol, but for the sake of ease vodka can be used. It is best to buy a high quality 100% proof vodka since it has virtually no smell.

The oil base that can be used is jojoba oil - which is really a liquid wax. Jojoba has excellent keeping properties and does not have a very heavy odor of its own. The percentage of essential oil used in perfumes is high, and to prevent any allergic reaction, remember to do a skin patch test if you have never used a particular oil.

When blending your perfume or eau de toilette or cologne start with the base (alcohol/vodka or oil base depending on what you are making) and add the oils drop by drop.The classification of perfume, eau de toilette and eau de cologne is based on the strength of the fragrance it contains and the percentages of essences used.

For a perfume you will use around 15% essential oil, whilst for a lighter eau de toilette you will use about 4 - 8% essential oil and a yet lighter eau de cologne 1 - 5%.

If you want to work out your percentages, you can work on the premise that 1 ml is 20 drops. To work out your percentages convert the total of the oil used as well as the base - be that the alcohol/vodka or jojoba oil - to drops. See Dilution Rates for more information.

If your total drops are, let's say 58 drops, and your base 240 ml (240 x 20 = 4,800 drops) divide the amount of drops by the amount of drops in the base. Using the above example you will get a result of 0.012 = 1.2% concentrate of oil in the mixture.

Some of the recipes state that you should mix the blend, bottle, cap and leave for x amount of days. This is to give the fragrance time to settle and to achieve a more rounded fragrance.