Botanical for Beauty Perfumes

Today I am writing about my "all natural perfumes".  At this time I have perfumes in both roll on and solid styles.  The roll on perfumes are simply essential oils in a base of golden jojoba oil.  The solid perfumes are in a base of olive oil, illipe butter (which is a very hard butter) and a bit of candelilla wax (an all vegetable wax).  This wax is perfect in one way because it has a very high "melting point" it won't melt in the summer heat, however that also means that I have to work with it very quickly as it can solidifies more quickly than the butters that I work with.  I also use this wax for my lip balms.


You will find that most essential oil perfumes are in a base of alcohol regardless of whether they are a roll on or a spray.  For those who prefer to have a light feel on their skin than either of my current roll on or solid perfumes I will be creating a light weight spray perfume in the future.  However, I have discussed this subject with my mentor and she said the best base to use would be either a hydrosol or grape alcohol.  Grape alcohol is difficult to find and as a result when you do find it, it is very expensive.  I found a gallon on the web and it costs $495.00, plus the USPS will not ship alcohol and it can only be shipped via ground.  Hydrosols are the by product (water left over) from the steam distillation process that is done to extract essential oils.

You may read that a hydrosol is the same as a hydrolat, flower waters, floral waters or distillates.  However, this can be confused with floral waters that are actually water with essential oils added and that is definitely not the same.

My perfumes are currently both single notes and a few blends plus some fragrance oils to give a bit of variety to customers who might want it.  I will also be introducing more blends over time.  I am aware that the current trend has been to have 10 or more scents all blended into one, however this is not how perfumery works.  Perfumery has 3 notes.  A top note, a middle note and a bottom note.  The bottom note is the "anchor" so to speak.  You can always add a "tad" of something truly special to your blend in addition to these 3 notes.  But the majority of the blend will be 3 scents, why you may ask?  Well the truth is too many different scents only confuses your nose and professional perfume formulaters call those "muddy" scents.

I currently have 3 blended perfumes.  One was at the request of a group of my friends who wanted a spicy scent and they even suggested which spices to me, so here it is "Exotic Spice".

This one seems to attract a great deal of interest "Romantic Whispers"

I love to hear your thoughts, but be nice.  What's your favorite scents.  Do you love exotic flowers, exotic fruits, do you have a favorite fragrance oil?  I would love to look at feed back and comments.

Information about some essential oils

Here is some very important information that is known about essential oils. However, I must state that even aspirin isn't effective for everyone nor is it equally effective for those who take it because it is some what effective for them.

So yes results will vary not only by person but also by the quality of oils. Yes it is common practice to mix lower quality oils with higher quality oils or even adulterate them with other cheap oils such as grape seed oil.

What qualifies an essential oil as high quality you may ask. Well there are several factors one of which is the growing conditions in the country of origin for that particular plant, the other can be the specific species of the plant and the distillation method used can also make a difference as well as the length of time spent distilling the plant and the heat applied as well. High heat is quiet destructive to many chemicals. The amount of heat that is too high varies with what is being distilled.

Mandarin Red is considered safe for use with children and has been known to have a calming effect on children.

Myrrh is known for helping cracked skin heal.

Palmarosa is known to be good for those with sensitive skin and as a cellular regenerative oil (scars).

Looks like green onions, doesn't it?

Peppermint is known to be stimulating and good for the digestion.

this is what peppermint looks like

Sandalwood is awesome for aged skin.

Tea tree is known to be beneficial for fighting acne and certain fungi.

Vetiver is know for being deeply relaxing.

Ylang ylang is both an aphrodisiac and known for being helpful to those who have high blood pressure.

Not the prettiest of flowers

Both cardamon and ginger are are beneficial for the digestion including nausea and gas plus can be beneficial for constipation as well.

Cinnamon and ginger are known for being stimulating and warming (improves circulation).

Even though this is not a very well known fact, there are various types of Lavender and they should not be confused with each other. There is lavadin, lavender spike, lavender 40/42 and of course "true" lavender which is generally French Lavender but I have heard that at times English lavender is just as good or better. It really depends on what the use is.


Lavender is one of the most complex molecules and also one of the most versatile essential oils. It is most well known as being relaxing. It is also well known from the story about the French chemists to be excellent for skin burns. I have used it for bruised flesh when I was in a car accident (along with ice), plus it can also be beneficial for acne, skin cuts, scars and headaches.

 

 

I will write more about essential oils sometime in the future.

Lip balm versus lip gloss - the difference

It seems to me after looking at many different recipes, the difference between a lip gloss and lip balm has been very blurred.  A lip balm is a balm designed to be used on the lips.  So what does the term balm mean?  The traditional use of the word balm is something that is soothing, comforting  and/ or healing.  Unfortunately like so many other words in the English and even other languages, the term can have more than one meaning.  The word balm can also refer to a herb that is part of the mint family (lemon balm), and some aromatic resins that certain trees and shrubs exude.  Plus it could refer to an aromatic salve or oil (but then you have to look up what a salve is) or even a pleasing fragrance.

Personally I have always thought of a lip balm and soothing and healing.  After all Chap stick is the king of lip balms, as in we may refer to a lip balm by saying chap stick (similar to calling a tissue a Kleenex).  That is why my lip balm recipe was carefully researched before I created any lip balms.

You may not be aware of this fact, but many commercial lip balms contain an ingredient that actually dries your lips and that adding a flavor to a lip balm may cause you to lick your lips which defeats the purpose of putting the lip balm on your lips in the first place.  This is why I do not put flavors or colors into my lip balm recipe.  However, I do add wax because that is the only way I know of to keep the lip balm stick well in the shape of a stick.

Now lip gloss on the other hand is meant to be a fun item.  It makes up lips look lusciously glossy and tantalizingly flavorful.  But that doesn't mean you want to put just any old crappy ingredients into your lip gloss.  At least I don't.  But you should be aware that flavor oil ingredients can be kept as a secret (as defined by the FDA).

Since the purpose of my lip gloss is to be tasty and glossy, I didn't use moisturizing oils nor did I use the highly protective shea butter.  However, I did think of it as also possibly being a fun Valentine day present so I thought glossy, tasty and soft,.  Which for glossy it's castor oil (also used a bit of Meadowfoam), for soft it was pumpkin seed butter (hydrogenated pumpkin seed oil) and for tasty, I ran and contest and let people vote on which flavors that wanted most.

I received some of the flavor oils today and I am expecting the rest of them soon.  So now it's off to design the labels and double check my recipes (some oils have to be used at a lower percentage than others).  Oh and of course let's not forget the photography and the listing.