Aromatherapy Beauty Products
Once you discover the world of essential oils and aromatherapy , there is no end to what you can do. You will most likely want to incorporate this ancient healing art into every aspect of your life, including your beauty and hygiene routine.
The great thing about using essential oils is that they are 100 percent natural. No synthetic ingredients. This not only makes them safer for you, but also safer for the environment. You can learn to use aromatherapy in much of your beauty routine.
One way to have instant, shining hair that is lightly scented is to sprinkle a couple of drops of sandalwood on your hairbrush. Brush your hair as usual and the scent will remain. Sandalwood is one of the more expensive of the essential oils but has a pleasant, woody scent. You can also substitute rose for sandalwood if you want to go a more inexpensive route.
Perfumery is a science. Making your own perfume with essential oils, however, can be fun. Today’s perfumes are made with synthetic copies of essential oils as real oils would be too expensive to use in the mass production of perfume.
Most perfumes on the market today are diluted with alcohol and water. You can also use oil to dilute your perfume, although using alcohol will make them last longer. When making perfumes, you will want to experiment with a variety of different fragrances. Most perfumes fall into one of the five categories:
• Woodsy
• Floral
• Oriental
• Spicy
• Citrus
It takes a bit of experimenting with essential oils to get the scent that you want. Most perfumes are usually a blend of three different “notes.” They contain one or more from each of the above categories. There is a base note, a mid note and a top note. The top note is the first to evaporate on your skin. It is also the first impression that you have of the fragrance. The mid note stays on a little bit more and the base note is what will remain on your skin for hours.
The base note will react with your skin to form a scent of its own. This is why no two perfumes smell exactly alike on any two people. It is also the reason why you should test out a perfume for about a half an hour by putting a dab on your wrist, doing your shopping and then taking a sniff to see if you still like the scent.
The nice thing about using aromatherapy perfumes that you make yourself is that the essential oils can actually help heal anything troubling you, or even give you energy, while also giving you a pleasant scent. Because they are made with synthetics, regular perfumes cannot boast of this power.
You will want to store your perfumes similar to how you store your massage oils - in dark colored glass bottles with tight fitting lids. There is quite a difference when it comes to ratios when making perfumes, however, and they are meant to be used sparingly. You will only be diluting the perfume with one tablespoon of carrier oil or alcohol to about 30 drops of essential oils. As you can see, the ratio between essential oils and either carrier oil or alcohol is almost equal.
As when using any essential oils, do a brief test on your skin before using. Then you are ready to blend.
For floral notes, you can use rose, lavender or geranium. For woodsy notes, you can use sandalwood, myrrh or frankincense. For Oriental notes, use Mandarin, Jasmine or Ylang Ylang. Spicy notes can be ginger, neroli, or nutmeg. The citrus notes are orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit.
It takes a bit of experimenting when making perfumes at home. Perfumery is an art unto itself and takes years to practice. Perfumers today still practice this art and make scents that fail. It is all a matter of personal taste and seeing what blends well with what.
One nice perfume recipe that you can use is very simple and combines woodsy with Oriental:
Basic Perfume Recipe - Oriental
1 tablespoon of carrier oil 15 drops of sandalwood 5 drops of jasmine 4 drops of Ylang Ylang Watch out - this is quite a romantic perfume! Perfumes were often used as aphrodisiacs and to attract a mate. This one is no different. It has a unique scent a pleasant base note, but again, perfume scents are very subjective. Be sure to experiment a little before you decide to open up your own perfumery.
You just need a little bit of this perfume on your wrists and behind your ears to carry the scent with you through the day. Because the essential oils are so concentrated in this blend, you do not want to use too much. There is an old saying that your perfume should not walk in the room before you do. You want people to remember pleasant scent, not be overpowered with fragrance.
In addition to being a pleasant perfume, the above aromatherapy fragrance also works to promote energy as well as putting you in a mood for romance. Both jasmine and Ylang Ylang are powerful aphrodisiacs, so only use this one with caution and when you are in the mood for amour.
By the above example, you can probably figure out what type of perfumes to use to relax you as well. The benefits of using aromatherapy in your own perfumes are the following:
• Completely natural products and non toxic
• Have healing powers as well as a pleasant fragrance
• You can have a scent that no one else has (don’t underestimate this one - there are people who pay plenty to create their own scent at perfumeries in Paris
• Much less expensive in the long run.
The disadvantages? You have to play around with scents for a little bit before you hit on what you like. Make sure that you write each ratio of every essential oil used in a particular scent as nothing can be more frustrating than actually coming up with the fragrance of your dreams and then not remembering how you ended up making it.
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