Walking through the perfume section of a department store can almost instantly trigger a headache. The scents are cloying and overwhelming. Plus, there’s some nasty stuff in those commercial perfumes that you’re spritzing onto your skin—chemicals you are absorbing AND inhaling.
Essential oils, especially some of the most fragrant oils like jasmine, neroli, patchouli, rose, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang, have long been used in perfume-making. But some of these essential oils are pricey, so some perfumers use cheap copycat synthetic scents instead.
How To Make Essential Oil Perfume
Creating your own perfume can take a bit of experimentation. The aromas you like may change over time. For instance, ylang-ylang was my long-time favorite, but now it can feel too heavy and overpowering at times. And patchouli used to completely scare me, but in an earthy blend, it totally works for fall.
Just know that the scents in DIY perfume are lighter wearing than those in traditional perfumes you can buy. So you don’t have to worry about headaches, but you might need to apply them a little more often.
My favorite way to make perfume is with a roll-on bottle. It’s easier than making a solid perfume and faster than a cologne. Plus, it makes application super easy! Simply give it a roll over your pulse points.
Therapeutic roll-on blends are all the rage right now for treating headaches, insomnia, and other ailments, but you can just as easily mix up a lovely essential oil roll-on perfume blend.
You’ll need just three supplies:
- Essential oils (EOs)
- Carrier oil: something light with little to no scent like jojoba, grapeseed, or sweet almond oil
- Amber or blue 10 ml glass roll-on bottles
First, you’re going to add your essential oils to the roll-on bottle. For everyday use, put no more than 10—12 drops total EOs into a 10 ml glass bottle. Swirl the bottle around to thoroughly combine the oils, and then fill the rest of the bottle with a carrier oil of your choice. Replace the cap and swirl again.
Your customized perfume blend is now ready for you to enjoy! Simply apply to your pulse points and reapply as needed throughout the day. Just be sure to give the bottle a little shake before each use.
How to Blend Essential Oils
I have conflicting feelings about creating a formula using the traditional top, middle, and base note approach. Those classifications are based on how quickly a scent evaporates. To be honest, it seems overly complicated and confusing to me. And for the life of me, I cannot remember how it works or the significance of each oil.
In the aromatherapy class I took recently, we learned a different formula based on an oil’s blending factor or the strength of its scent. Not to be overly dramatic, but this was kind of life-changing. It makes so much more sense to me to blend based on how strong an oil is! Here’s an example for blending the 10 drops needed for a perfume with three essential oils:
Add the blending factors together for a total of 11.
Then you take the percentage of that total (11) for each oil. For lime, it would be 3 divided by 11 (27%). Then multiply that percentage by the total number of drops you need in your recipe (10): 27% times 10 equals 2.7. So lime gets 3 drops.
- 3 drops lime (3/11 x 10)
- 1 drops jasmine (1/11 x 10)
- 6 drops bergamot (7/11 x 10)
Total: 10 drops
You’ll quickly get the hang of it after you calculate a few formulas.
12 Essential Oil Perfume Blends
We’ve created 12 perfume blends that you can try, but feel free to play around with the scents that appeal to you! Above are a few examples of our favorite scents by category: floral, citrus, herbal, woodsy, and spicy.
Floral
Jasmine and rose both have heady floral scents. To keep them from becoming overpowering, blend with almost any citrus oil. Here are five options for a lovely floral scent.
1. Jasmine Vanilla
- 5 drops sweet orange
- 2 drops organic lime
- 2 drops jasmine absolute in jojoba oil
- 2 drops vanilla in jojoba oil
2. Rose perfume
- 2 drops rose absolute
- 4 drops sandalwood in jojoba oil
- 5 drops bergamot
3. Enchantress perfume
- 4 drops jasmine absolute in jojoba oil
- 3 drops frankincense
- 3 drops sweet orange
4. Lovely Lavender perfume
- 2 drops ylang ylang
- 4 drops lavender
- 4 drops vanilla in jojoba
5. Flirty Floral perfume
- 2 drops clary sage
- 3 drops lavender
- 3 drops bergamot
- 1 drop ylang ylang
- 2 drops vanilla in jojoba
Citrus
Citrus scents are uplifting and fresh. Roll these on when you need an energy or mood boost. If rosemary’s scent brings to mind an afternoon of cleaning, try lavender or grapefruit instead.
I always hold the essential oil bottles together in my hand and waft them under my nose before blending. That way, I can see if I like a particular fragrance combo.
6. Lemon Rosemary
- 5 drops lemon
- 3 drops rosemary
- 2 drops neroli or 4 drops sweet orange
7. Citrus Bliss
Trust me on this one—this aroma is heavenly! Every time I wear it, I get compliments!
- 2 drops lemon
- 3 drops lime
- 5 drops vanilla in jojoba
Earthy
I love rich, earthy scents. Remember, patchouli blends extremely well with many other essential oils, so you don’t have to be afraid of it!
8. Patchouli Palmarosa
9. Vetiver perfume
- 3 drops vetiver
- 3 drops vanilla in jojoba
- 4 drops sweet orange or bergamot
10. Cedarwood and Patchouli perfume
Spicy
Clove will quickly overpower a blend, so go slow when adding it or use a pipette.
11. Bergamot Clove
- 5 drops bergamot
- 1 drop clove
- 4 drops sandalwood in jojoba oil
- 2 drops vanilla in jojoba oil
Floral & Earthy
I love the combination of florals and earthy aromas—the two balance each other extremely well!
12. Sweet & Spicy
- 3 drops patchouli
- 2 drops ylang ylang
- 5 drops lavender
This post was medically reviewed by Dr. Jennifer Haley, a board-certified dermatologist with extensive experience in medical, cosmetic, and surgical dermatology. Learn more about Hello Glow’s medical reviewers here. As always, this is not personal medical advice, and we recommend that you talk with your doctor.
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You can buy bergamot essential oil that has the bergapten taken out and then it won't be photo-sensitive. I only use this kind when making perfume.
What essential oils do you recommend for mend fragrance? and do you have any blend/combinations that you think work well?
*mens
Hi…may i know what does it mean vanilla – 2 drops in jojoba oil?
Plant Therapy oils have been tested and are not pure. Most oils you can find are 85-100% adulterated or synthetic, third party testing shows.
Can you tell me where you found that testing/data around Plant Therapy oils? Is it published anywhere? If you make a claim like that you should cite sources. Also, the article doesn't mention that brand or link to it, so your comment seems out of place (all the affiliate links are to Now Solutions and Aura Cacia).
I'm going to have to disagree with that. Plant Therapy is one of the few reputable companies and they offer full transparency of their testing:
https://blog.planttherapy.com/blog/2019/09/30/gc-ms-testing-why-you-need-to-care/
hai, thank you for this usefull info, iam planning to make toddler perfume balm from eo, do you have any.suggestion.what aroma blend suits and save for toddler starts from 1 year age. thank.you
Not advised to make perfume for toddlers this young. There are certain oils which are only safe to to use on young children.
Normally the perfumes using EO s goes well when it is not synthetic, oak moss an earthy note with ylang ylang and sweet orange smells good.
Thanks so much! That makes a lot more sense to me too, and is more intuitive. <3
How do you add vanilla to your scent? What do you mean by vanilla in jojoba oil? Do you just use the vanilla you get at the grocery store?
Can you blend Jasmine, Lavender, cedar,and sweet almond oil to make a perfume ?? Can you put some Frankincense with it ? I have a lot of medical issues, autoimmune, fibromyalgia, ADHD, very sensitive to chemicals and dye that you find in most stuff. I was raised in the mountains and was Doctored with herbs and natural stuff. ” Now” I Live in west Tennessee and have all these medical issues. Doctors find me a challenge to take care of. That was until I went back to using the oils and eating like I was raised to. But I don’t remember what to blend together .
Can someone please work with me on this???????
Notes are relatively easy to comprehend. You would benefit greatly from understanding it. The blending factor you are using relies tremendously on the brand/quality of EO, along with how old the EO are (citrus loose their intensity between 6-12 months after opening) and the harvest conditions. Therefore, it is very unreliable.
In addition, I would not recommend Grapeseed because it absorbs too fast and it spoils (6-12 Month after opening). Jojoba has the issue of turning solid at cold temperatures. FCO (Fractioned Coconut Oil) seems like the best bet. It is not scented and last up to 4 years. However, some people can be allergic to it or Almond. In addition, some people find it a little drying on the skin, which is fine if only a small area will be applied. If you are going to use alcohol, I recommend high proof, not vodka like I have seem some blogs suggest.
Granted, quality perfume is not expected to last longer than 12 months, but I wouldn’t want it to go bad after 6.
Your initial blend of Lime, Jasmine and Bergamot has several problems.
1. If the Lime EO was cold pressed it possess a danger of photosensitivity when used above 0.7%
2. If the Bergamot EO you used was not bergapten-free (FCF) vacuum out then it posses an even greater risk.
3. Lime and Bergamot are both top notes, and most of the time Jasmine is a middle note, meaning you have no base note. Your fragrance will dissipate very fast. Considering these are fragrances made entirely of EO, it is not advised that you apply every half an hour. Aside from applying base notes to your blends, try to find some that double as fixatives, they will further prolong the life of your scent by slowing down the rate of evaporation.
And most important of all, always keep safety in mind. If you are so willing to be giving out advice to your readers, then you must also assume the responsibility of only divulging safe information.
To Author: Thank you for your post!!
To James: Thank you for you comment! It was helpful to me in choosing a carrier oil. I never know which to use but FCO makes a lot of sense! I really love the various uses for coconut oils/butters. Do you have any combinations of scents that you like? I am just learning how to blend.
Could you put this in a spray bottle?
My favorite scents are jasmine and bergamot. Is there a magic ratio of drops to use for a perfume and is there a special carrier that works the best? Grape seed or jojoba or almond?
What if you wanted to make the solution with neutral grain spirits. How much would you add drop wise to those blends?
I used to have a mix made for me that was Lavender and Vanilla, I know the carrier oil was Jojoba oil, what ratio of the essential oils would I use to make it for myself?
How does alcohol comes in all of these?
Ylang Ylang was also a long time favorite of mine. But since I noticed that I get silent headaches from it, I’ve stopped using it.
I’ll definitely have to try out the Floral Blend. Sounds super delicious :)
I had the same problem with Ylang Ylang when diffusing it alone. Have you tried using it in a blend? I found when its strong floral scent was balanced out with something earthy and something citrus, it didn’t have the same impact. Good luck!
Thank you so much for breaking down the steps for us! I’m definitely going to make one myself =)