Married to the Empire

Friday, July 31, 2009

Creating Your Own Scents--The Update

I posted about 6 weeks ago about experimenting with making my own scents. I was loosely following recipes/directions in this book. Each concoction had to sit for a few weeks, so I wasn't able to update you until now.



It all smells nice! However, the toilet water doesn't have any lasting power. I have no interest whatsoever in wearing peppermint or lavender scents (I made them specifically as room sprays--the peppermint helps me with migraine, interestingly), but I did try them on my skin for experiment's sake. The scent fades from skin very quickly. However, it's all quite nice sprayed into a room or onto linens. Again, it doesn't really last, but it creates a pleasant aroma for a while.

(As an aside, the name toilet water completely offends my husband who asked why it has that name. I tried to explain about the French term toilette, but it was somewhat fruitless. I'm just calling it what the book calls it.)

As for the eau de cologne, this is more perfume-like. The scent is strong and stays on the skin. I'm extremely pleased with how this turned out! Now I just need to find some pretty bottles for this stuff.

Someone had asked in the comments on my previous post if I can smell the alcohol. I couldn't answer at that time due to the waiting process, but I can now assuredly say that there is no smell of alcohol whatsoever.

Overall, I'd call this little experiment a success. The cost was not great, as I already owned the essential oils and distilled water used in the process. I paid $18 for a bottle of vodka. Given the amount of scented products I made with it, I'd say it was a very good value. Oh, I also spent 99 cents on each of the little plastic spray bottles pictured above. I'll probably purchase something a little nicer for the eau de cologne, but nothing very expensive. It's a cost effective way of customizing your own scents.

2 comments:

lizzykristine said...

Hmmm, you have me intrigued. As you know, I have a large bottle of vodka in the house, only half used in tinctures so far. So it isn't like I'd have to risk another embarrassing trip to the liquor store! :)

AnneK said...

I am with Steven on this one. Toilet water does not sound very nice!