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How to make a natural perfume from essential oils only

A natural perfume is made the same way as any other, weighed in grams, diluted and rested, but only from materials taken from plants and resins: essential oils, absolutes, resinoids and balsams. That changes three things. The palette is smaller and rougher. The base has to come from resins, woods, roots and absolutes, because the clean musks and ambergris molecules are synthetic. And natural does not mean unrestricted: the molecules inside an oil carry the same IFRA limits and allergen labels as the pure chemicals.

What counts as a natural material?

Anything distilled, pressed or extracted from a plant or resin, without a synthetic added. The catalog marks each material as natural or not. FCF and distilled citrus grades are still naturals: Bergamot FCF Essential Oil is bergamot oil with the furocoumarins taken out. Perfumer's ethanol is not marked natural. If the whole bottle must be natural, make it as a perfume oil in Jojoba oil, which is. How to make perfume oil.

What can fix a natural perfume?

Resins, balsams, roots, woods and a few absolutes, the slowest materials nature makes. Labdanum absolute, Vetiver Essential Oil, Patchouli Essential Oil, Tonka bean absolute and Vanilla absolute each carry a catalog strip life of 400 hours on paper. Benzoin Siam resinoid softens and rounds an amber; Cedarwood Essential Oil Virginia gives a dry, pencil-shavings wood; Ambrette Seed Absolute brings a natural muskiness in traces. Labdanum is the closest natural material to the smell of ambergris. What a fixative is explains why these last and a citrus does not.

Do essential oils have IFRA limits and allergens?

Yes, often more of them than a synthetic formula. Some oils have a standard of their own: the expressed citrus oils for phototoxicity, ylang ylang and jasmine among others. Many more are capped through what they contain: eugenol in clove, coumarin in tonka, citral in lemon, the rose ketones in rose, each summed across every oil that carries it. On the label side, the EU requires an allergen to be declared on a leave-on product once it passes 0.001 percent of the finished product, and natural oils are full of them: linalool and limonene in the citrus oils and lavender, geraniol in geranium, eugenol in clove. What percentage of essential oils is safe has the caps oil by oil.

How do I check a natural formula?

Put it through the IFRA check at the strength you will bottle it. A natural amber-floral, 20 g of concentrate:

At 18 percent the IFRA calculator finds one line over its Category 4 limit: ylang ylang lands at 0.9 percent of the finished product against a cap of 0.73. The highest strength this version passes at is 14.6 percent. Cut the ylang to 0.6 g and give the 0.4 g to the benzoin, and at 18 percent the ylang is at 0.54 percent and the formula is within every limit, up to 24.33 percent. The other restricted molecules were never the problem here: eugenol, almost all of it from the clove, is at 0.727 percent against 2.5, and coumarin, almost all of it from the tonka, at 0.59 against 1.5. The same check puts linalool at 0.994 percent and limonene at 1.04 percent of the finished product, far past the label threshold, so both go on the label.

What should I expect from an all-natural perfume?

Something warmer, rougher and more alive than a synthetic perfume, and shorter in the opening. Citrus and many florals are fast, so a natural perfume sheds its top quickly and lives in its resins and woods. It will not have the clean radiance of white musks or the lift of the ambergris molecules. Naturals also change with age: citrus terpenes oxidize, and linalool is controlled by IFRA through its peroxide value, which is an argument for fresh stock, full bottles and cool storage. Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) is the natural antioxidant the catalog lists for this.

How long should a natural perfume rest?

By strength, like any perfume: PerfuMate's maceration journal gives up to 15 percent a 60 day rest, up to 25 percent 90 days, and stronger blends 120. Resins and absolutes take days to dissolve fully, and waxy absolutes can leave a haze, so chill the bottle for a day at the end and filter it before bottling.

In PerfuMate the catalog records which materials are natural, the IFRA check sums each restricted molecule across all the oils that carry it while you compose, and the free IFRA calculator does the same for a pasted formula. Why perfume irritates skin covers the allergen side. Start a formula, free.