A plain understanding of how to make fragrance oils (FO) is sufficient to craft fragrance of your own. Although, Perfumery Courses and Degrees can lend you a lucrative career in Fragrance & Cosmetics Industry but even a basic understanding of perfumery can go a long way. In fact, with basic skill set you can start experimentation for crafting of attar & perfumes and aim for becoming a flavorist easily.
Importantly, fragrance oils make staple component in attar production where least to no addition may be required to make attar. So, in the most cases when you are buying an attar, you buy a fragrance oil itself. In most cases, attar are quality fragrance oils however not necessarily all-natural. You can check best attars in India for getting a sense of quality fragrance oils which are skin friendly scents.
Fragrance oils make crucial ingredient for candle, soap, toiletry, cleaning agent etc. but are unfit for direct topical application. Usage wise best fragrance oils are available in the market wherein, uses cases are not interchangeable. As an aware user, going for quality fragrance oils that use natural ingredients most is the aim.
Crux of making fragrance oils lies in the fact that they are synthetically compounded scented oils. And that, they should not be confused with the 100% natural Essential Oils used in Aromatherapy.
Basics of How to Make Fragrance Oils- The Way to Create Countless Number of Aroma on Planet
Prominently, there would be three components to make a fragrance oil: Main aroma oil, Solvent and Dilutant. Notably, the fragrance oils don’t need a preservative as no water component is involved. Fragrance oil industry uses 3000+ ingredients which might include aroma chemicals, essential oils, essential oil components, various essences etc.
These essences have also got wide uses in toiletry, candles, soaps, incense sticks, cleaning agents etc. Ministry of MSME, espouses the flavour & fragrance making in India and Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules 1945 regulates it. However, going by FDA and EU norms can get you wider sense of industry. In all, regulations recognize around 350 natural fragrant materials of which large part is sourced from wild vegetation.
Typically, fragrance oils or perfume oils are scented oils you create with essential oils by using artificial additives or by synthetic chemicals alone. Best attar brands in India adopt the approach of mixing least of synthetic with natural essences.
Because of pricey essential oils, their limited availability in nature and lower shelf life, the concept of fragrance oil evolved. In fact, by using certain synthetics you can create any scent in lab that mimics smell of a product on the earth. Meaning, the essential oils may not have aroma of spicy coffee or rains but through chemical processes you can create a fragrance oil with same smell.
Conclusively, aroma oil could be of three variants: Essential oil, Synthetic Fragrance oil or Nature Identical Fragrance Oil and Natural Fragrance oil. Essential oils come costly and a natural fragrance oil that uses isolate of different essential oils makes it pricey too. Thus, a good number of fragrance oils available in market could be synthetic fragrance oil or nature identical fragrance oil type.
Essential Oils Still Remain at the Core of the Best Fragrance Oils
Why aromatherapy is gaining the momentum? Mainly because it uses pure essential oils to positively impact your physical, emotional and mental health. The oils enter the body through the skin via massage or bath or the olfactory system via a diffuser or humidifier. At the end, essential oils do enhance mood, relieve pain, fatigue or inflammation, and sterlise the atmosphere in all natural way.
The very same logic of natural goodness, they have got demanding use in making of fragrance oils. And, then these fragrance oils find way into manufacturing of Attars, perfumes, cosmetics, flavours, soap and candle. With growing demand of natural products, it is imperative that ingredients of FOs are largely natural. One can only ensure this with higher percentage of essential oils, organic absolutes, concretes & waxes, resins and botanical crystals /powders obtained through most natural processes.
It is however true, that only best brands of attar, candle or soap would prominently use essential oil in high proportion. After all, the products have to be price competitive too and essential oil come pricey.
Use of Solvent, Dilutant and Preservative in Making Fragrance Oils
In order to achieve certain smell ta perfumer has 3000+ different fragrance ingredients that he may use. These ingredients can be both natural and/or synthetic. Notably though, the ingredients might come in the form of liquid, powder or crystalline. Use of solvents is necessary to dissolve the powder/ crystalline ingredients into liquid oil. The most common solvent in use for decades is DEP (Di Ethyl Phthalate).
Dilutants are other chemical which have use in fragrance oil making. Basically, they are cutting agents to dilute the strength of a fragrance oil and do thinning Job. At times essential oils may be required to be thinned out with a diluent so that they can properly travel up the wick and burn correctly. The most common diluent is DPG (Di Propylene Glycol). Other typical diluents employed in might include iso Propyl Myristate and di-Octyl Adipate.
Some fragrance oil makers also use their own formulated solvent which are phthalate free. There are alternative to synthetic dilutents. Fractionated coconut oils are natural dilutents that can pretty well substitute the Di Propylene Glycol (DPG). Especially if are going to use fragrance oils for candle making or soap making you would necessarily need substitute of DPG.
Typically, no antimicrobial preservatives are required for making fragrance oils. The reason being, these fragrances are made up of oils only and have no water component whose presence otherwise allows microbial growth. So, the more natural and some of the best fragrance oils could be crafted paraben-free. They could be formulated phthalate-free too, if you use no crystalline/powder ingredients. Using no Phthalate and no Paraben makes them safer for you and the environment too. Phthalates however, sometimes are used to serve the twin purpose of solvents and a fixative both in fragrances.
Mimicking the Smell through Analysis and Formulation thereafter
How does a perfumist create a Fragrance Oil? He can either devise a unique formulation of ingredients, notes and accords or can mimic an existing fragrance oil and make certain tweaks. Perfumists employ in gas chromatographic (GC)-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) to analyse ingredients of a model fragrance.
Deciding the formulation in also includes deciding % of oils in top, middle and base notes. A typical ratio of 15-25%, 30-40% and 40-55% is most common but it depends. Choosing the oils in the notes is also a part of this beforehand exercise.
The top note would normally contain the essential oils which have relatively quick evaporation. Ideal oils for top notes include: Bergamot, Mandarin, Lemon, Orange, Grapefruit, Lavender, Clary Sage, Basil, Cardamom, Coriander, Eucalyptus, Juniper, Neroli, Peppermint, Pine, Tea Tree, Thyme etc.
Middle notes are heart of the fragrance and accordingly the oils ideally should evaporate slower than those in top note. Ideal oils for heart not might include: Ylang Ylang, Frankincense, Geranium, Rose, Jasmine, Chamomile, Cedar, Cinnamon, Clove, Palmarosa, and Marjoram.
Base note would ideally have oils that evaporate slowest of all in order to offer you lingering effect. They are the reasons behind staying power and adds long lasting effect in the overall fragrance. Base ingredients would ideally include: Sandalwood, Musk, Patchouli, Vetiver, Oak Moss, Benzoin, Vanilla etc.
The Secret of Fragrance Oils You are Kept from
The world of fragrance is little bit tricky. Everything is not open to you and this is allowed by regulations with a caveat in place. Basically, perfumery is a science and a real art that requires one’s persistent efforts to perfect on.
The “Trade Secret” clause of the FDA extends enough protection to a perfumist in so far to disclose ingredients of a fragrance oil partly. So, although you can reverse engineer a fragrance with scientific tools, a perfumer may not disclose every ingredient on label.
In USA perfumer’s only obligation is to reveal the most prominent ingredients in descending order and label the product as fragrance. Although, FDA upon requirement can check if the ingredients you have not disclosed fall in the list of RIFM (Research Institute for Fragrance Materials) and FDA itself.
Idea behind all this is that perfumery is an art and copy right of an individual with his personal faculty of blending fragrance notes to create unique fragrance accords. Considering the regulation & standard practice, across geography, fragrance oils from top brands are way to go with.
If you are into fragrance making, it is imperative that these fragrant ingredients are sourced in most innocent form. And, the process of fragrance extraction should ensure that it does not take away the goodness of mother nature. Hence, as a fragrance lover you should know as to how different extraction processes affect the quality of fragrance ingredients.
Why to Make Fragrance Oils when Essential Oils can Provide for Fragrance all Naturally?
Essential oils of course are natural fragrance with therapeutic benefits but there are serious drawbacks too in using them as fragrance.
- Most of the Essential oils are highly potent natural oils with strong smell and can harm direct application.
- Essential oils are pure natural extracts from nature and come pricey. So, fragrance oils are cheaper alternative.
- There could be inconsistency in the quality of Essential oils sourced from different geographies depending upon soil, weather and cultivation method. With fixed formulation fragrance oils are could be made quality consistent.
- Essential oils are not sustainable, you need using fixative and other ingredients to prolong the smell and shelf life both.
- Availability range of Essential oils is small. There aren’t too many essential oils in the nature. Only few plants have it. You cannot get a vanilla essential oil, a blueberry muffin essential oil, or a strawberry essential oil. These aromas can be mimicked by fragrance oils only through lab procedures.
- Essential oils can cause more allergic reactions than fragrance oils. EU lists some 26 natural allergens out of which 16 are constituents of essential oil and 02 are of absolutes. These naturally occurring allergens are ruled out in the course of formulation of fragrance oils and perfumes. Obviously, best fragrance oils would have lesser number of allergens and hence, more health compatible they are.
How to Make Fragrance Oils of Your Own- A Plain Simple Blueprint
Simplistic way of creating your signature fragrance oil has to do with proper blending of ingredient fragrance oils. [Lets keep away other ingredients for sake of simplicity]. Although we all know that creating a fragrance oil is an art and takes a lot of considerations but, let us not stop right there. Experimentation with blending must be easy and could go on becoming an addictive fun. You may not wonder that some of the best attars in India took off because of fun experimentation only.
That said, you need at least three basic fragrance oils for respective three notes.
For Top Notes – Fragrance oils suitable for this are ideally light, flashy aromas that hit your nose first and evaporate quickly. Citrus, mint, and bergamot are suitable for top notes.
Middle Notes – Fragrance oils suitable for this are bit heavier molecules and more retaining than that of top notes. Lavender, tea tree, and juniper are suitable for middle notes.
For Base Notes – Fragrance oils suitable for this are heaviest molecules and fixative in nature. They last longer than the other two notes. Sandalwood oil, Patchouli, Vanilla, and Amber are suitable for base notes.
Start Experimenting for Blending of Individual oils in Very Small Quantities
Usually, fragrance oils are concentrated and come expensive. So, you cannot afford to just play around these oils involving large quantity. Thus, I advise experimenting the fun of blending with very small quantity of liquids.
You should use 5ml clean transparent bottle for blending and three clean droppers each for sucking individual fragrance oils. Understandably, fun part of perfumer in making will go light on your pocket.
Every time you experiment, use a fresh bottle and three clean pippets/ droppers. Keep a record of blending in case you would want replicating a particular blend.
Start with, ideally 20 drops of all three individual fragrances in a ratio of 12:4:4 drops of Base, Middle and Top note oil.
Eventually, you would be able to prepare multiple blends. Allow these mixtures settle for 20 days. Lastly, smell each of the blends and see which one suits the best to your nose. You never know when you would accidentally make one of top attar fragrance that goes on to become a bestselling.
How to Apply a Fragrance Oil for Optimal Benefit
If, you want optimum benefit from fragrance oils you must know applying them rightly. Getting hands on quality fragrance oils and top attars is only a part of job, applying right crucial.
Factually, right place to apply fragrance oils are sweet spots of body. Experts term them as pulse Points and include many sites all over your body.
In particular, middle of forehead, ankles, elbows and knees are the sweet spots. Further, back and behind the ears, between the breasts, heart centre, wrist pulse sites also make up of sweet spots.
In fact, these Pulse points keep generating heat to help diffuse the aroma. As a result, diffusion of fragrance becomes a continuous process and you enjoy sensing the fragrance oil most effectively.
If, you apply the fragrance oils on the pulse points it calms your brain and nervous system. Their aroma lifts up your spirit to a higher level of consciousness and regulate prana.
In short, the aroma of fragrance oils circulates the vital energy throughout your physique. Natural, quality fragrance oils do the job all the more effectively. And, best attar online in India could prove a reliable resource in getting you some very best.
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