History of Perfume and Potential Materials

Before liquid perfume was invented, people recognized the fascination of aroma that certain plants and herbs release when burned to worship the Gods. 

The very first inventors of perfume were the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians. They were known for their use of scented oils. Later on when scent extraction methods were passed to Greece, the usage of perfume was no longer limited to religious purpose but also for personal application as well. 

In the late 18th century as technology progressed, synthetic materials were invented and were manufactured in factories. This is the time when perfumery became a common practice among different classes since fragrance combinations were more affordable due to mass production. 

- Potential Materials -

There are two scented oil that I can use to make my perfume with, the first one is essential oil (organic, extracted from plants and purified) and the other one is fragrance oil (artificial, doesn't contain organic ingredient, includes aromas that do not exist in nature). 

I will also need a solvent to dilute the oil I mentioned above in order to make them more suitable for skin application. There are several choices for this procedure, this includes ethanol (vodka, high concentrated alcohol), and scentless, tasteless carrier oil (jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, grape seed oil etc.).

How can we forget about the important perfume bottles! Since this is my very first attempt of perfume making, I intend to buy some simple solid glass bottles for the various fragrance blends. Eventually, I will pick three best scents that I like the most to be my final product. 

To prevent a too concentrated/week perfume blend, I need to have measuring tools such as some medicine droppers and pipettes to get the measurements right.   

So I went to do some shopping...

• cotton wool pads
• coffee beans (to refresh my nose from inhaling different scents)
• essential oils
• fragrance oils
• 6x glass mini bottles
• grape seed oil
• medicine droppers
• pipettes 

Essential Oils

Fragrance Oils

Making My Own Perfume!

Hi there, this is Zoe.

This blog is my maker journal where I keep track of my maker experience.

When we talk about the act of "making", we usually think of something that is solid and touchable.

For my final project, I'm going to do something different. I will attempt to make a scent, a perfume, which can only be experienced through one of the five senses: smell. 

First, I will start off by researching different methods of preserving scents, and the sources of different scents (e.g. flowers, food, spice). Then I will do various experiments to filter out the best solutions for my end product. During this process, I will avoid the use of artificial chemicals to keep my perfume natural and healthy.  

My timeline will depend on how complicated the procedures are, I will update it after some brief researches.

*update!*

It is not complicated at all to D.I.Y your own perfume. Once every material is gathered and prepared, your perfume factory is ready to start! Mine has started a day ago when I

The most time consuming process is actually the "maturation" of a perfume.
It can take up at most six weeks for the whole maturation process, the longer the better. Yet it doesn't mean that the perfume is not successful before the whole maturation procedure. It only indicates that the scent of the perfume will be changing throughout the time before it eventually matures and settles.