Embrace the world of layering perfume with essential oils. Discover how you can turn everyday skin care products into a myriad of delicately fragranced layers of perfume that build to a crescendo of fragrant bliss.
Learn how to take the elements of your favorite signature scent with a range of essential oils to make up the top, Middle, and base notes. Top notes are the most ethereal and dissipate quite quickly, middle notes make up the body of the perfume, and the base notes linger the longest on your skin, caressing you for hours on end. Heavy lotions help fix base notes for longer and lighter skincare and can be tailor-made to suit your skin type and still echo your favorite signature scent.
We show you how to consider the amount of essential oils you are using and deliver amazing recipes for your Signature Scents.
Over the next few articles, we will look at how to layer perfumes on the person and within the home. Today's will focus on how to layer rich, deep, and fragrant perfumes on our body.
We often spray perfume on and leave it at that, but we can get wonderful effects that last all day…and night…when we layer them.
The Benefits Of Layering Perfume With Essential Oils
When we layer our perfume, it may seem like you are using many products, but you only need a very small amount of each product that builds to have a fantastic fragrance and presence. Certainly, you will have to use far less of the more expensive perfume by working this way, making it go further, last longer, and ultimately save you money.
Layering perfume helps your fragrances to work together, and they are not fighting against one another. How many times have you put your deodorant on, sprayed yourself with hairspray, added perfume, and made yourself a bit lightheaded and smell like a teenage girl's pamper party?
These strong fragrances are fighting against one another and not working synergistically or symbiotically to support the other.
When you use fragranced body products that support one another and work well together, you build a layer of scent that can last all day and night. Which is great when you have to head straight from the office to a hot date. Ooh la la.
Creating your own products to layer your signature scent also gives you control over the ingredients you are using, and you can decide what you want to put on your skin…and what you don't. You won't look back once you start creating your own aromatherapy products!
The Importance Of Notes In Layering Perfumes With Essential Oils
All essential oil fragrances can be categorized into different notes. Top, Middle, and Bottom notes.
Top notes are the most ethereal and dissipate the quickest. They are the first thing that you smell when you spray your perfume.
Essential Oil Top Notes: Bergamot, Basil, Eucalyptus, Grapefruit, Sage, Lemon, Lemongrass, Lime, Sweet Orange, Petitgrain, Pine Needle, Spearmint, Ylang Ylang.
Citronella, Peppermint, and Lavender straddle the top and middle notes, falling on the cusp.
Middle notes come next, lasting longer and underpinning those gorgeous wispy top notes.
Essential Oil Middle Notes: Rose Geranium, Geranium, Palmarosa, Coriander, Cinnamon Leaf, Clove, Nutmeg, Cypress, Juniper Berry, Chamomile, Clary Sage, Marjoram, Oregano, Rosemary, Tea Tree, Red Thyme.
Black Pepper and Ylang Ylang can straddle the two.
Ylang Ylang also has a top note element to its scent and can cross all three notes with ease and grace.
Base notes are the heavier scents that underpin the fragrance and create a strong foundation for it to sit upon. All great perfumes have amazing base layers and notes. These last the longest, so it is what you'll smell on your skin after a few hours. That is why they are so important.
Essential Oil Base Notes: Frankincense, Cedarwood Atlas, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Vetiver.
Layering Perfume With Essential Oils On The Body
Think about all the toiletries you are using. Are they coordinated, or do they have lots of different fragrances? Your shower gel differs from your body butter, and your moisturizer differs from your night cream. If so, these fragrances will be fighting against one another.
It is easier than you think to make your own range of toiletries using the same signature scent. It is much easier than you would imagine, and with a small investment in some key ingredients, it makes much more financial sense. This is certainly the case if you are buying matching designer fragrances.
VINEVIDA have comprehensive tutorials coming out of our ears, and I will link a few of them here for you, have a go because many of them are very simple to achieve at home for yourself.
Perfume
If you are still deciding whether to make your own perfume or have an absolute favorite, pop online and look up the ingredients and scents that make up your perfume profile. It will help you break down the core notes and elements you can introduce to your products.
Let's take Chanel No. 5, a world favorite. It has the following notes:
Top notes: Ylang Ylang, Neroli, Bergamot and Lemon.
Middle Notes: Iris, Jasmine, Rose, Orris Root, and Lily of the Valley.
Base Notes: Civet, Musk, Amber, Sandalwood, Moss, Vanilla, Vetiver, and Patchouli.
We would not want to add ALL of those to our signature scent, but we could choose from the list above those we like the most or those that suit our skin type, especially if we intend to use them on our face.
If I were making a signature scent based on using Chanel No 5 as my perfume, I would choose the following:
Top Notes:
Ylang Ylang because I like it, and it will also help to balance my skin and blood pressure.
Neroli because I like the citrus zing, and I love what it does for the appearance of my skin.
Middle Notes:
I adore Orris Root, and I love its complexity and depth. It is a real treat for me and suits my skin beautifully.
It would be a toss-up between Rose and Jasmine, and I would plump for Rose in my skincare and Jasmine for body care.
Base Notes:
Vetiver is a no-brainer because I use it to help me sleep better.
Patchouli is a much more cost-effective choice and lays down that gorgeous intense base layer of fragrance. With both of these essential oils, a little goes a long way.
I also add a Vanilla note because it is extremely long-lasting, and people like it. It reminds them of comforting things like custard and ice cream.
With a handful of essential oils, you can easily create underpinning layers to your perfume.
To learn your own perfume, look in Fragantica's huge encyclopedia of perfumes for a breakdown of your favorite fragrances…
Even better, create your own! Find out how in my article on How To Make Perfume With Essential Oils.
It's easy to create a head-to-toe approach and have you nestled in a veil of luscious fragrance in no time.
Showering
You can buy fragrance-free shower gel bases, and you can add your own signature essential oil blend. You can also add this to shampoo and conditioner blends. So your body is scented with gorgeous essential oils, and so is your hair. When your hair is fragranced, that often can last many hours and even days, depending on your hair type.
When we get out of the shower or bath, many of us like to slather on a body lotion or a rich, nourishing body butter; if this were made up with your signature scent, you are already adding that extra, deepening layer of fragrance.
Body lotions and butter are the perfect delivery vehicle for those essential oils with heavier base notes. These base notes are the ones that will last the longest on the skin, so you always want to choose something that really resonates with you.
Facial Care
We have to be more judicious when it comes to what we put on our face; we don't want essential oils or carrier oils that will block our pores or make our skin break out. However, you can certainly include those essential oils from your signature blend that are compatible with your skin type.
When you add your signature scent to your cleanser, toner, moisturizer, serum, and night cream, you are adding all those beautiful layers of perfume, but they are also benefiting your skin in the right ways and are not just there for the sake of smelling nice.
Foot and Hand Care
It's easy to create hand and foot products that are also made with your signature scent. Rich, heavy creams are the perfect delivery method for those base notes again and hold those middle notes a little longer than light lotions and creams. Top notes will always be ethereal and disappear the quickest.
Create foot powders, lotions, and heavy heel creams for perfectly fragranced tootsies.
Remember your precious hands and layer those throughout the day with your gorgeous signature scent.
How Much?
Of course, you do need to consider just HOW MUCH essential oil you are absorbing at this point, which needs to be considered when developing your signature scent.
For instance, you might absorb 2 drops in your skincare and 10 drops in your shower gel, but your body butter might add another 20 drops to that total, which starts to rack up the amount of essential oil you are absorbing.
You must bear this in mind when you are creating your own products that all have essential oils.
For this reason and because essential oils have a cumulative effect on the body and as a layered fragrance, you can use less essential oil in your products.
If you were ONLY making a 100ml Moisturizer, for example, you would aim for an essential oil content ratio of about 3% essential oils, about - 60 drops.
However, if you make a cleanser, toner, moisturizer, serum, AND night cream, you can easily drop the essential oil ratio to 0.5-1%. Which is 100 ml is between 10 and 20 drops.
Of course, the benefit of this is that your essential oils go so much further, too, and you get more for your money.
Take our Signature Scent recipes; they give you 20 ml or 400 drops of blended pure essential oils. If you used an essential oil ratio in all your products of 0.5% and they were all 100ml, you would have enough to make FORTY individual products.
Yes, you read that right. You could make up to FORTY / 40 individual products.
Investing in a few ingredients to make your own organic or natural base creams and lotions will set you on the path to success and help save the pennies.
Not only that, but it gives you complete control over what you are putting into your products and helps you avoid ingredients that you might not want in your beauty products or on your precious skin.
Layering Perfume With Essential Oils - Creating a Signature Scent
Creating your signature scent is easy when you know what you like, but you must also know what smells good on your skin. Perfumes don't smell the same on everyone; they react with your skin's biology. One person's skin might be more acidic, changing the perfume's smell.
The moisture in the skin also plays a part in how the perfume smells on your skin.
Choose essential oils that resonate with your skin, both in type and how it smells on your skin. It may take trial and error to reach something you're happy with. But no great perfumer made a perfume quickly; if they did, it was sheer luck and happenstance!
How To Make Your Signature Scent With Essential Oils
You will need a small measuring jug, a stainless steel spoon, a funnel, a 20 ml dark glass amber dropper bottle, and a label.
How to:
- Combine the essential oils in a small measuring jug and use a funnel.
- Decant them into a 20ml bottle.
- Add the dropper insert.
- Cap tightly and label clearly with all the ingredients for safety reasons.
20 ml of essential oils is approximately 400 drops, but it does depend on the viscosity and weight of the individual essential oils. If you struggle to dispense drops from a thicker essential oil, weigh it instead. 1 ml is approximately 1g; again, this depends on the viscosity and gravity weight of the essential oil.
Floral Fandango Signature Scent With Essential Oils
Top Notes
- 50 drops of Sweet Orange Essential Oil - (Citrus sinensis L)
- 50 drops of Bergamot Essential Oil - (Citrus bergamia)
Middle Notes
- 100 drops of Rose Geranium Essential Oil - (Pelargonium asperum var roseum)
- 100 drops of Jasmine Absolute - (Jasminum grandiflorum)
Base Notes
- 50 drops of Vanilla Absolute - (Vanilla planifolia)
- 50 drops of Ylang Ylang Essential Oil - (Cananga odorata)
Safety: Do not use it in the first 37 weeks of pregnancy.
Bergamot Specific:
- Do not use it on children under 2 years of age.
- Bergamot can be phytotoxic, so do not expose skin that you have applied Bergamot essential oil to the sun for at least 48 hours.
How to use: This blend is pure essential oils, and therefore it will ALWAYS need to be appropriately diluted before using it in your chosen Signature Scent preparations, such as moisturizers, toners, and cleanser bases. Please see the guide to appropriate dilution ratios in the 'How Much' section above.
Spice Sensations Signature Scent With Essential Oils
Top Notes:
- 50 drops of Lime Essential Oil - (Citrus latifolia Tanaka)
- 30 drops of Eucalyptus Essential Oil - (Eucalyptus globulus)
Middle Notes:
- 70 drops of Ginger Essential Oil - (Zingiber officinale)
- 50 drops of Cardamom Essential Oil - (Elettaria cardamomum)
Base Notes:
- 100 drops of Palo Santo Essential Oil - (Bursera graveolens)
- 100 drops of Sandalwood Amyris Essential Oil - (Amyris Balsamifera)
Safety:
- Do not use it in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.
- Not for children under 2 years of age.
How to use: This blend is pure essential oils, and therefore it will ALWAYS need to be appropriately diluted before using it in your chosen Signature Scent preparations, such as moisturizers, toners, and cleanser bases. Please see the guide to appropriate dilution ratios in the 'How Much' section above.
Hedonistic Heartlands Signature Scent With Essential Oils
Top Notes:
- 60 drops of Grapefruit Essential Oil - (Citrus paradisi)
- 40 drops of Basil Essential Oil - (Ocimum basilicum)
Middle Notes:
- 100 drops of Rose Otto Essential Oil - (Rosa damascena)
- 100 drops of Rose Geranium Essential Oil - (Pelargonium asperum var roseum)
Base Notes:
- 25 drops of Black Pepper Essential Oil - (Piper Nigrum)
- 75 drops of Vetiver Essential Oil - (Vetiveria zizanoides)
Safety:
- Do not use it in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.
- Not for children under 2 years of age.
Grapefruit Specific:
- Not suitable for people with platelet disorders or who are on blood thinning medication. You should cease using grapefruit essential oil 48 hours before any planned surgery.
How to use: This blend is pure essential oils, and therefore it will ALWAYS need to be appropriately diluted before using it in your chosen Signature Scent preparations, such as moisturizers, toners, and cleanser bases. Please see the guide to appropriate dilution ratios in the 'How Much' section above.
Links To Tutorials For Layering Perfumes With Essential Oils
These links provide supporting information and guidance in creating natural products with essential oils.
- Skin care - moisturizer, cleanser, toner, nourishing or night cream, face masque, face scrub, face serum.
- Body care - bath scrub, body oil, body lotion, body butter, talcum powder, body spray.
- Foot care - foot scrub/cream/balm, foot powder, foot oil.
- Hand care - hand scrub, hand cream, cuticle oil/cream, hand soak.
- Scent sets - room spray, diffuser, scented candle, scented pine cones, essential oil necklace.
- Bath sets - bath oil, bath bombs, bath melts, bath salts, bath scrubs, shower steamers.
- Layering scent - perfume, body lotion, soap, talcum powder, body spray.
The Final Word
Layering perfumes with essential oils has so much more to it than just smelling gorgeous for a longer period.
It offers you the opportunity to create all your own organic and natural skincare products using your favorite signature scent or at least a handful of essential oils based on the fragrance profile of your favorite perfume.
It also allows you to harness essential oils' wonderful physical, emotional, and spiritual properties and choose ones from the perfume's fragrance profile that suits your needs. For example, I use a lot of Ylang Ylang to balance my skin and blood pressure. I always plump for Vetiver because it helps me sleep as well. Not only do they smell nice and support your signature scent, but they are fulfilling other roles with their fantastic array of physical properties.
For this reason, you need to be judicious and consider just how much essential oil you will absorb in an average day. You can put far fewer essential oils in the products you intend to layer. The scent will build, trust me.
You don't need to buy those fancy designer lotions to match your perfume; you can easily make them at home for a fraction of the price.
This can save you a LOT of dollars over the months too. This is where you can make a huge financial difference in the cost and quality of your skin and body care products.
Remember, that tiny 20ml bottle of blended essential oils can scent up to FORTY different products.
Why not get started on layering perfumes with essential oils right away? I promise you won't regret it.
