Perfume making basics: the first questions, answered
By Omer Siton, founder of PerfuMate · Updated
A perfume is a concentrate of aromatic materials, weighed in grams, diluted in alcohol and rested for weeks, and every answer on this page follows from that. Each question gets a short answer here and a link to the page that answers it in full.
How do you make perfume at home?
Weigh a formula of aromatic materials on a scale that reads 0.01 g, dilute it in perfumer's alcohol to the strength you want, let it rest for two to four months, then chill, filter and bottle it. None of it needs a laboratory. How to make perfume at home weighs a first formula of seven materials step by step.
What ingredients and supplies do you need to make perfume?
A 0.01 g scale, small glass beakers and bottles, pipettes, smelling strips, perfumer's alcohol, a little dipropylene glycol for dilutions, gloves, and five to ten materials covering the top, heart and base. What a beginner kit should contain lists them with the job each material does.
What is perfume made of?
A concentrate of aromatic materials, natural extracts and synthetic aroma chemicals, dissolved in alcohol; a perfume oil uses a carrier oil instead, and a solid perfume wax and oil. The industry's own list of ingredients in use, the IFRA Transparency List, names 3,691 of them. What is perfume made of?
What is the main ingredient in perfume?
Alcohol: in a 30 ml bottle at 18 percent, 20.5 g of the 25 g is perfumer's ethanol and 4.5 g is concentrate. Inside the concentrate, quiet, slow materials such as Hedione and the musks often outweigh the notes a description names. What is perfume made of?
How is perfume made?
Raw materials are distilled, extracted or synthesised; a perfumer composes them into a concentrate written to a brief; the concentrate is reproduced by weight and dosed into the product, which for a fine fragrance means diluting it in alcohol. At home the sequence is weigh, dilute, rest, chill, filter and bottle. How perfume is made, from raw material to bottle.
What is a good homemade perfume recipe?
One written in grams, with the strength of every diluted line, the concentration to bottle it at, and an IFRA check at that concentration. The first formula on how to make perfume at home is one: seven materials, 10 g of concentrate, bottled at 18 percent.
Where can I find perfume formulas for beginners?
On pages that give grams, dilutions, a strength and an IFRA check. Perfume recipes for beginners has four, from a 5 percent cologne to a clean white musk, and points to an all-natural one; the 50 reference accords on /accords show every share, free.
Where can I find perfume formulas and accords as a PDF?
There is no single download yet, but the formulas and accords can be read and copied for free. The free perfume formula template is a CSV with an example formula in it, and a formula entered in PerfuMate exports as a PDF sheet. Perfume recipes for beginners has the details.
What are some perfume recipes using fragrance oils?
A fragrance oil is already a finished blend, so its recipe is a dilution: for a 30 ml spray at 18 percent, 4.5 g of oil in 20.5 g of perfumer's alcohol, if the oil's IFRA certificate allows 18 percent in Category 4. Blending two oils means adding up each one's share against its certificate. Perfume recipes for beginners works it through.
How do you make a perfume concentrate?
Weigh each material into one glass in grams, zeroing the scale before each line, the heavy base materials first and the volatile citrus last, and write down what you actually weighed. That blend, before any alcohol, is the concentrate. How to make perfume at home.
How long does it take to make perfume?
About an hour to weigh and dilute, then about 60 days of rest for an eau de toilette, 90 for an eau de parfum and 120 for an extrait, and usually several versions before a formula is right. How to make perfume at home and how long to macerate perfume.
How much does it cost to make perfume?
The equipment is bought once; the materials are the running cost, and they grow with the number of trials. One 30 ml bottle at 18 percent holds only 4.5 g of concentrate, so in a settled formula the materials are usually the smallest part of a bottle's cost, and the first bottles are the dearest. What it costs to start making perfume.
How expensive are perfume ingredients?
It depends on the material, not on whether it is natural: Sweet Orange Essential Oil and Ethylene Brassylate are inexpensive workhorses, while Orris Butter is among the most precious materials in perfumery. Strong materials are used diluted, so a small bottle lasts a long time. What makes perfume materials cost more or less.
How do you make cologne (a perfume for men) at home?
An eau de cologne is a light citrus-aromatic perfume at low strength, set at 5 percent by PerfuMate and worn by men and women alike. A perfume for a man is made like any other perfume, often on a fougère or woody structure, at eau de toilette or eau de parfum strength, and checked against IFRA at that strength. How to make an eau de cologne has a 20 g formula and covers both.
How do you make DIY perfume as a gift?
Start two to four months before the day, because the perfume needs its rest; check the formula against IFRA at the strength you bottle; and label the bottle with the name, the date and the main materials. How to make perfume at home.