Blending for Total Beginners

I LOVE my job.

Our perfume competition is going swingingly - we've had the panelists' choices through for their favoured top, middle and base notes and also their preferred smells from a set of "wild cards" we sent them. I've logged all their responses, loved putting their packs together and am very interested but I'm ashamed to say that though I've been at Plush Folly for some months now, I'm a total novice when it comes to making perfume. The Perfume Home Study Course is one of my favourites to put together and know which smells I like best but at the beginning of last week I knew nothing at all about how a balanced perfume was put together.

I do now!

On Thursday, Sal, Mandy and I spent the morning blending and sniffing the panelists' chosen essential and fragrance oils until we came up with some fabulous scents to send back to them for their approval (or otherwise).

I learned so much. I'd not really considered how to actually mix oils so you can assess how they smell together or keep tabs on what you've mixed - cotton wool pads and paper plates to write your blend on are so simple but work so well. I learned about top, middle and base notes and how it can be difficult to predict how some oils will smell together until you've actually blended them. Some that I thought would smell amazing because of what I was dropping onto my cotton wool pad with a pipette were either nondescript or overwhelmed by one smell. Sometimes Sal would say, "Now just add 2 drops of....." and my blend would blossom right under my nose. Amazing.

It was clear that, in the same way we all have different favourite foods, we all have our personal favourite smells - Mandy likes anything in the 'green and fresh' category; Sal adores bergamot; me? I'm so new to it all that I'm wowed by many but think I favour the citrus category.

Without giving too much away, one of the "wild cards" was Chocolate fragrance oil and it's amazing how that blended with other smells. It's so distinctive on its own - we know as soon as someone's taken the lid off to pour some in the office - but it seems to absorb and develop other fragrance and essential oils in a really unexpected way. It was such fun to play with.

Grapefruit essential oil was one of the favoured top notes that we used - it's supposed to lift the spirits so perhaps it's that I can thank for being in such a great mood for the rest of the day or perhaps it's simply that I have such a fantastic job!

Thanks, Sal!

Nickie