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There are no schools that teach
the art of perfume making. Perhaps there ought to be because
this is an ancient art that once all women knew. Before perfume
making became a big commercial operation backed by high tech
laboratories and expensive marketing departments women made their
own perfumes at home. There is no reason why you can't recapture
that lost art.
Here is your
own little perfume making school. The first lesson is learn to
use your nose. We all go about with our noses closed or switched
to auto pilot. The toast is burning is about as much we allow
our noses to tell us. But there is much more that a nose can
do if we let it.
Take some
time to smell things. Your friends will think you have gone mad
but never mind. Smell fruits in the market. Smell flowers as
you walk through the park. Walk in woods. Walk on the sea shore. |
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There
was a time when we used our noses to tell us about the world.
Now we live far more visual lives. We learn to follow visual
signs. Our ancestors found their way to the baker's shop by the
smell. You can even distinguish people by their smell.
A lot of the time we are responding
to smells unconsciously. Supermarkets like to waft new baked
bread smell around because it makes us buy things. At Christmastime
shops often use spicey smells to put us in a festive mood. Without
knowing it we are attracted to pur partners by the smell of their
sex pheromones. Armotherapists use smell to help lift depression.
To make perfume you need to become
aware of what you are smelling. You need to understand the subtle
effects of smell on your psychological state. So that was lesson
one of the perfume school.
Lesson
two of the perfume school relates to the equipment you need apart
from an educated nose. This is by far the simplest part. All
you need are glass containers such as bowls and some glass jars
for mixing your perfumes. Glass is best because it does not react
with the essentials oils in perfume.
Essential oils are what we smell in a perfume. They
are volatile plant oils. They are extracted from flowers, leaves,
seeds, fruit and twigs. You can do this youirself or you can
buy them ready made. They come in small, dark glass bottles.
The glass is dark to stop the essential oils reacting with light.
You will find essential oils
in health food stores and specialist shops that stock perfume
ingredients. If you have no local supplier look on line. There
are a number of retailers on the internet.
Essential oils are not expensive because you only
need small quantities. A few drops will be enough in most cases.
The bottle ususally have a dropper in the top. If not get a small
pipette. This is a glass tube with a bulb at one end. You draw
up a small amount of the essential oil and drop it into your
perfume mixture.
Lesson three
of this perfume school involves putting that trained and sensitive
nose to work. Your aim is to blend the essential oils into a
pleasing perfume. That means adding some top notes, some middle
notes and some base notes. It's like composing a piece of music.
You want a harmonious composition of essential oils to make the
perfect perfume. |
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