Making perfume from flowers and herbs Part 1 - Gardening with Brendan
In this the first of a two part series, I try my hand at using flowers, herbs and leaves grown from seed in my garden along with perfumer's alcohol and carrier oil to create two distinctive perfumes, one lighter floral scent and one heavy earthy scent. Stay tuned for part two in a few weeks to see how they turn out. And check out the blog at derryjournal.com for more info.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Good morning, it's very early on a Monday morning here and this week we're going to
00:17start the process of trying to make some perfume. Some aftershave. I'm planning on doing slightly
00:26ambitious for somebody who's never done this but I'm planning on doing two different fragrances
00:32or trying at least to make two different fragrances. I've done a wee bit of research and I'll just
00:37run through some of the things you may need if you want to try this yourself. So first
00:44up is what are you going to put into it. There's two things you can use that are readily available
00:52and that's some kind of clarier oil which extracts the scent from flowers, from herbs,
01:03from leaves and holds it in the oil. And then you can use perfumer's alcohol as well. So
01:11I'm going to try one with each and maybe a bit more alcohol into the oil when it's completed
01:22for projection. So I'm trying this with mostly natural ingredients out of the garden. Just
01:30as a way of using up things before they go to seed. What I have here are some leaves,
01:40some herbs and some different flowers as well.
02:10I've got some ferns marigold, sweet pea and a little lillysum. If I just turn this way,
02:36I'll probably get some chamomile as well. What I have here is lemon balm. It smells
02:51like citrus fruit. I'm going to use that as the tab note for the question.
02:57So just to explain a wee bit about how perfume works. So what you can do is,
03:22so in real perfume, they use one of three things which is either synthetics or naturals to get the
03:33fragrance. So naturals are usually done through essential oils which are often used for, I have
03:43one here, it's lavender. But essential oils are often used for perfume or for candle scents or
03:52bath melts, things like that. And then you have absolutes as well. So different processes. One
04:01is done through steam essential oils. This is a much more labour intensive process and its
04:07absolutes are much more expensive. This one out here is a little vial of myrrh absolute,
04:14very expensive these days. But I've had that for a very long time and got it quite cheap in Spain
04:21at one stage. So you can do either and they will take the plants or the leaves or whatever you're
04:30using and distill it down to capture the essence of the plant, the fragrance of the plant.
04:36And then create these oils from them. So they're the naturals, but most perfumery now is made with
04:44synthetics which are created in a lab. They mimic the smells of these things. So you'll find like
04:57all these kind of sequences of numbers and stuff in perfumery, but they are synthetics. And then,
05:05what I'm going to try and do is make a perfume from scratch with a lot of flowers that have been
05:12grown from seed. Different hairs and leaves as well that have been grown from seed. So what I have
05:20here is four different types of flowers that I'm going to be using today. This is sweet pea which
05:26is a fragrance variety. Very, very sweet, very fragrant. Another very sweet flower is Elysium.
05:38It smells a bit like honey. Then I've got the French Marigold from which you get tagetes or
05:47tagetes oil. That's often used in perfume as well. It's a much more earthy, ground scent.
05:53A bit greener. And then the last flower I'm going to be using is Chamomile. This is generally
06:01Chamomile. And I've been out picking these early in the morning because that's when they're most
06:05fragrant. And then to add to that, I'm going to be using tomato leaf. Very, very fragrant plant.
06:16Tomorrow, black currant leaf. For top notes, and I'll explain that in a moment, I'm going to be
06:23using mint and lemon balm. And lemon balm is like, it smells like lemon basically. It's quite an
06:31astringent lemon. So all perfumery has three notes. You have the top note, the middle note and the
06:42base note. The top note is what you smell straight away when you spray it or you roll it on. And that
06:47is usually citrus because it doesn't last very long. But you get this blast, this initial blast.
06:52And that's why I'm using the lemon balm. I'm going to make that because we can't grow citrus here in
06:57Ireland. Just go to the climate for it. So if you put on perfumery, you usually get a blast of
07:03something like grapefruit, lemon, orange or orange flower. And that's where the top note comes in. That's
07:13followed in by the middle notes, which are slightly stronger, slightly more longer lasting. And it can
07:19be a whole wide variety of things. And then you have the base notes, which are the ones that last
07:26on your skin or even if you're burning candles at home or whatever. So the base notes are the ones
07:35that you'll smell most of the time while you're wearing a fragrance. And those are deeper notes,
07:39like vetiver and patchouli, things like that, that are really strong. Oakmoss is another one.
07:45The middle notes could be like lavender, rosemary, different herbs, things like that. But also,
07:54there's a lot of flowers too that are much more lily, things like that, that are longer lasting.
07:59So obviously the main flower used in perfumery is the main two flowers. It's probably three
08:09actually. Ylang ylang, rose and jasmine are used in various different combinations. And geranium is
08:18really popular as well. And you can mix them with all sorts of things to get different types of scents.
08:25But they are very, very popular, particularly in sort of high-end perfumes. You'll find a lot of
08:33those natural ingredients, the absolutes in there. What I plan to do today is just get all these
08:40under jars. And this is the other thing you're going to need, is a little vial for putting your
08:46finished product in. It's best if you're using a carrier rod, like the Ibidium. I'll explain that in a moment.
08:53They use glass vials and you can pick these up pretty cheaply. You can buy them in bulk online.
08:59Because the carrier rod can break down the plastic. And if you're using a plastic spray bottle or
09:07anything like this, this is just roll-ons. So because it's oil, it won't clog the spray out.
09:14So I'm using two different types of carriers. And this one is perfumer's alcohol, which is a high
09:22concentration of alcohol that you can pick up online. It's safe to use on the skin. It's vegan, it's not
09:27tested on animals. Same with this. This is jojoba oil. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. But there's
09:35different ones you can get. There's peach kernel oil. There's all different ones. But it means
09:41that they don't have, they will extract the scent of the plants you're putting in. But they won't cover
09:49the scent or corrupt it with their own scent. So that's what I'll be using. And I've got these airtight
09:58glass jars. I can't remember what was in this one. But this one was a coffee jar that's been cleaned out
10:05and left out to dry. So there's no scent in it. These are big glass jars where I'm going to be adding in
10:11the flowers, which I'll do right now. So we'll get started. What I'm going to make here today, I should have
10:20explained actually, was I'm going to make, try and make two different types of fragrance. Like back in Roman
10:26times and everything, there was no real distinction between what a man wore, what a woman wore. People
10:32just really thought like smelling like. So I have no problem wearing whatever I like the smell of.
10:44That's why so many perfumes these days are not gendered when you buy them. Although there is the
10:54mainstream market for market perfume that either men or women in certain scents like sandalwood and tobacco
11:03and leather have all come to the market as male scents. And then things like flowers
11:12and sweet herbs or sweeter scents have come to the market as female scents. You'll notice that if you ever watch the ads for perfume.
11:29I have picked all these very early in the morning because that's when the scent is the strongest
11:35and that goes across the board.
11:37So I'm just going to put all these into the jar straight on.
11:47And it doesn't matter if there's a wee bit of stem on them. A lot of perfumes will have,
11:51will just use the leaves of different plants. So you'll see like things like violet leaf absolute,
11:57tobacco leaf and a lot of things.
12:04And you don't have to use real flowers like you could use
12:08essential oils. You could use the absolutes which you can find online.
12:14But make sure they're for our perfumes to wear on your skin.
12:22So instead of saying I want to make a male or female perfume I want to make
12:26try and make a lighter perfume in one and a deeper perfume in the other.
12:34If you want to smell like a rose just go for it. If you want to smell like tobacco go for it.
12:41Nothing stopping anyone from wearing what they want.
12:55So
13:08in terms of preference my own preferences for really really strong
13:12scents are the Gunsense, the Frankincense, Smyrna and they're used a lot in
13:18perfumes made in the Middle East. A bit of Tars and stuff like that.
13:28You can get those pretty readily now over the internet.
13:34But I also like some sweeter stuff too and then some really really deep stuff.
13:38So that's all the sweet pea in there now. You can see that when you press them down
13:50you leave more room. And to that I'm going to use the Tadichis or the French Marigold leaves.
14:00Add them in. You'll find too that some of these will add colour to the perfume.
14:09In terms of how long I'm going to leave them in here
14:15from just from doing research it seems to vary online. People say different things so
14:20I'm planning to leave them in here maybe at least 48 hours in the oil maybe a bit longer.
14:30And then I'm just going to add in most of the Sweet Alison and I'm going to
14:40keep some for the other one.
14:45And so in this perfume then we have
14:51Sweet Alison, French Marigold and loads of Sweet Pea and then I'm just going to add in a bit of
14:57Lavender here.
15:14Not putting too much on because what I want to do is add in some essential oil
15:24and my Lavender. I have looked to have Lavender flowers growing but this is pure
15:29Lavender oil and this is okay to use on skin as well. So now that I have those on I'm just going
15:39to now, so now that I have those on I'm just going to now choose some kind of herbs they might add
15:48into it. What I want for this one I think is that Lemon Balm.
16:18Okay
16:42what i'll keep doing is maybe if I get more flowers
16:45is just keep adding them. So after a few days I'm going to take this oil out, strain it
16:53and then maybe add more flour if you try to keep it concentrated. Now I'm just going to
17:01pour the curry oil onto this and make sure it covers everything. Just a moment.
17:21Make sure that's all covered. Just to release those oils. Break it down a little bit.
17:47Then when that's done I'll add in the rest of the oil. So that's that done for now.
18:00And then we'll move on to the next one. I'll just show you this up close. See there?
18:12Might need a bit more oil over it but that's basically it. That's the first one done. And
18:28now for the next one. It's going to be a bit of a darker shade. I'm going to use the mirror
18:33in this as well at the end. I don't want to put it in now because I'll waste a lot of
18:38time straining the products. So for this one I'm going to use perfumer's alcohol. This
18:44is a 100ml bottle from Maub. So under this I'm going to use mostly herbs and leaves.
18:55This will be a much more earthy grassy scent. First I'm putting the tomato leaf and just
19:06breaking it up here to release the oils. Put some stammer gun on there. I'm not being too
19:34precious about it. You could use a pestle and mortar if you have one. I don't because
19:47I'm going to wash these down a bit. Under that as well I'm going to put the rest of
20:09Just for that tiny no-dust sweetness. And then this is not going to be a sweet peppermint at all.
20:18This is going to be much more herby. And then this smells very strong. This is chamomile.
20:25It's German chamomile. I have loads of this that I've grown from seed. I want my chamomile
20:33tea soon from it before it goes to seed. Maybe I should do a video on it. You get two types
20:44of chamomile. You have Roman and you have German. The German one grows particularly
20:56well in our climate. It smells incredible. It's just really really fresh, almost like apples.
21:05There's so many of these here but I'll make a cup of tea out of the rest of these.
21:35We mainly fillet these with distilled water if they're too potent. If they turn out too potent.
21:58They shouldn't be because they're naturals but they don't have the concentration that
22:04an absolute essential oil would have. That's most of them. There's quite a lot of chamomile
22:13in there. And under that we're going to add the milk. Now our very fragrant one. Squeeze
22:32Squeeze the diamonds on them. And the black currant leaf. This is going to be a very green,
22:52very fragrant. Squeeze those down. And then add in the rosemary and a wee tiny bit of
23:03lavender as well. So this one really smells much more powerful than the other one because
23:10of the strength of the ingredients. They're just very pungent herbs. Yeah, that's really
23:27That's really nice actually. Let's do our final few bits here. Press that in there.
23:44And about a wee bit on the back of the spoon. As good as anything. So as I say, under that
24:02at the end I'll put the myrrh and the other one will have some lavender in it. But for
24:09That is it done. And then all I need to add is the alcohol in this one. We'll just leave
24:16this for a few days to see how it pans out. I hope these work actually. I do know a wee
24:24I do know a wee bit about perfumery but I've never actually tried to make it. So just from
24:34reading up on it. That should break down over time so I'll just maybe pummel it after 24
24:49hours or so. And then that is a 100ml bottle of wine there. So that will need diluted I
24:59would say, the alcohol in. Afterwards we'll just leave it in there for now. And then strain
25:09these, squeeze out as much of the liquids as we can once they're infused.
25:37And that is that. That's the two of them done. And the only thing left to do is to wait.
25:45And then at some later date we'll do an update on how they're doing. So this one is in Chiara
25:54oil, this one is in perfumer's alcohol. Thanks for watching.