by Mountain Rose Herbs
Creating new essential oil blends and re-creating old favorites is an exciting and relaxing experience. It doesn’t need to take a lot of time, although it sometimes can – either way, the rewards of creating your own scent combinations are endless and very satisfying!
What you’ll need to get started:
Essential Oils – A nice selection of staples, top, middle, base aromas, and maybe some special treats like rose and ylang ylang. Use high-quality, organic essential oils .
Gloves – Keep in mind that you are working with undiluted essential oils and you do not want to get any on your hands!
Droppers, Pipettes, or Reducer Caps – Most essential oils come equipped with a reducer cap (it looks likea n inverted funnel in the neck of the essential oil bottle), but if there isn’t one, keep some droppers or pipettes handy. Find glass droppers in your local drug store
Small Glass Storage or Blending Bottles – I find that 1/24, 1/8, or 1/4 oz bottles work well depending on the blend. ou canfind these in amber or colbalt blue on the Internet.
Perfume Blotters or Cotton Balls – Smell and observe your creations transform as they evaporate.
Pen and Paper – Write down the amounts of each oil used. This is a must! If you don’t do this one day you willc ome up with a fantastic essential oil blend….and never be able to recreate it again.
Towels – Just in case!
Time to Blend!
When creating blends, only work with a small amount of oil at a time. I’m talking mere drops of oil here. You don’t want to mix up 1oz of a blend right away, dislike the result, and end up wasting all of that precious oil. Try starting by formulating with 10 drops. This amount is easy to work with as parts and converts nicely for figuring percents:
10 drops = 10 parts = 100% of the test blend
This gives you a formula that can be used to recreate your blend for any recipe. Be sure to count accurately while blending. Keep a written list of each oil and the amount you add! Believe me, you’ll want this information later.
For example, one all-time favorite blends contains:
4 drops/4 parts/ 40% organic lavender essential oil
4 drops/4 parts/ 40% organic clary sage essential oil
2 drops/2 parts/ 20% organic neroli essential oil
This makes an easy blend totaling 10 drops or 10 parts or 100%.
Keep in mind the different notes of an aroma as you blend. You will want to include top note oils, middle note oils, and base note oils. You can learn more about that here: A Few Notes on Aroma. Your goal is to create a blend that you enjoy throughout all of the stages of evaporation.
Once you have completed a blend, put some on a perfume blotter or cotton ball and inhale to see how the aromas evaporate. I like to do this initially and repeat the next day to see if I still enjoy the aroma or want to make any adjustments. Getting creative and tweaking recipes is the fun part of experimenting with scents!
So, now you are ready to play. Go grab some of your favorite essential oils and get blending.