This lovely amber perfume is delightfully complex with warm, sweet base notes and exotic, woodsy top notes. I’m really enjoying it as a bit of scent-sory (haha) sunshine in the midst of this rainy spring.
The first thing you’ll smell is a hit of sharp cedar blended with bright, exotic michelia alba leaf essential oil and cardamom. There’s a hint of pith and a dry, spicy, alluring note you can’t quite place.
After the high notes fade, you’re left with a warm, sweet, mellow base note of labdanum and bergamot with dancing mid notes of cedar and the mellower bits of michelia alba popping out every now and then. It’s like sunshine and spice, with a bit of something you can’t quite put your finger on.
I’ve decided to call this lovely blend June Solstice Perfume because it’s warm, sweet, and bright. It makes me happy. It feels full of warm promise of hot summer days to come. I hope you’ll love it as much as I do 🙂
June Solstice Perfume
34% labdanum essential oil
24% michelia alba leaf essential oil
8% cedar atlas essential oil
10% cardamom essential oil
24% benzoin essential oilEqual volume perfumery alchol
These are the percentages for your scent blend—remember you’ll be topping off the scent blend with an equal amount of perfumery alcohol, so make half as much scent blend as you need to fill your perfume container.
An easy way to measure this out is to define 1% as one drop or half a drop. That way you can count out 25 drops for 25% (or 12.5ish drops for 25% if you make 1%= ½ a drop). If you’re using a 5mL roller bottle like the one pictured here, I’d recommend defining one percent as half a drop. That’ll give you enough room to add the perfumery alcohol.
Once you’ve measured the essential oils out into your bottle, top them off with an equal volume of perfumery alcohol. Then you’ll cap your bottle, label it, and set it aside to age for a few months before use. I’d recommend checking it and testing it as it ages so you can really see how it changes—take notes so you can feel confident in your observations. Once you love it, start wearing it!
Perfumery alcohol is a high proof, low-scent alcohol that dissolves, dilutes, and fixes essential oils. If you don’t have it or can’t find it (I’ve heard it can be difficult in the USA—I order mine online from Saffire Blue here in Canada) you can use high proof vodka (Everclear has also been recommended by readers) instead. A final alternative is using a low-scent, fast absorbing carrier oil, but I can’t speak for the “mingling”/aging of the scent over time with an oil base.
Sounds Lovely! Will try this when I have saved for the ingredients 😉
Only a few months in DIY-ing w/ you later I have a new DIY addiction, a DIY corner in my living-room. Now I only need a DIY-wallet 😛
Thank you for the inspiration!
I know what you mean! I need a DIY income lol 😛
Hi Marie!
Just wondering if you feel that the alcohol helps the scent of the perfume last longer on the skin? I have made my own perfumes previously with a carrier oil (grapeseed / jojoba) + essential oils. I find that the smell fades away within about 30mins after application onto the skin though… 🙁
Hi JT! I haven’t done a 1:1 comparison, but my alcohol based perfumes are 50% EOs, and I suspect that might have more to do with the longevity of the perfume than the base. What percentage of EOs are you using?
Hi Marie!
Thnx 4 ur response, I was using about a 70/30 oil 2 essential oil ratio, it smells great @ 1st, but the smell fades away after a few mins… I will try with a stronger ratio of essential oils & see how it goes 🙂
Hi JT! Something else to consider is that you may simply be adjusting to the scent as it hangs about, so you might want to ask a friend if they can smell it on you after you can’t 🙂
I agree – you just might not being smelling it on yourself anymore. I make my own lotion with patchouli and some other EOs – though i cant seem to smell it on myself after the first few minutes of applying, i always have people coming up to me in stores, at work, etc. and this is at the end of the day…kinda makes me sad that i dont get to enjoy the smell though. And yes – i have patchouli haters who say rude comments to me also.
I know that feeling! I love it when I get a whiff of my perfume in the day, but that’s the most I get unless I’m constantly huffing my wrist, haha.
Miss Marie, Your Solstice Perfume is lovely, thank you.
Sincerely, A Midwest cowgirl.
Ramza
Thanks so much, Ramza! I’m glad you’re enjoying it 🙂
I was looking at this
http://www.amazon.com/Insect-Synergy-Essential-Undiluted-Therapeutic/dp/B008N0PYB4
and wondering what I should put it into: oil, solid body butter, some water with solubizer, lotion… when suddenly it came to me: PERFUME! no water so no preservatives. and it can go in a spray bottle.
what do you think, crazy… or BRILLIANT?
Great idea! I might dilute it a bit more heavily than I do for perfumes, though, since those EOs look a bit more potent than the resins (benzoin and labdanum are more resins than EOs) that make up a lot of my perfume recipes 🙂
Right, I made it 13% EO’s. I just got really excited when I figured out I could do this. I don’t own any solubizer (yet) so putting it into a carrier oil or balm was the most obvious choice and I thought my friends would think it was just too greasy to go putting oil all over themselves. Then I remembered how your perfumes work and I thought AHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Booyah 😉 Brilliant DIYing!
I have a problem with perfume. 99% of perfumes i buy and use smell like Raid fly repellent. I have tried perfumes from a number of different makers. It dosent matter how expensive it is either. The only perfume that i have tried that actually smells nice is no longer in production. Soft Musk from Avon. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Terry! It sounds like this might be a body chemistry thing. It sounds a bit silly, but I’ve really found that different perfumes smell completely different on different people. I remember a friend had this lovely all natural vanilla perfume that smelled divine on her, but when I tried it… yuck! It was like cheap cake frosting combined with bug spray. Truly awful. So, this may just be a case of you needing to find something that works with your body. You may find homemade perfumes work better as you can ensure they contain all natural ingredients as opposed to storebought ones, which can contain synthetic fragrances, but I can’t swear to that. Perhaps try different EOs, mixed in carrier oils, dabbed on your skin, one at a time. Leave each one for a day and see how each one develops on your skin over time. Take notes, see what you think, and perhaps develop a blend from there?
Made a few of your perfumes and this one is by far my favorite, with London Fog coming a close second. Just beautiful!
Thanks, Vanessa! Glad you’re loving it 🙂
Dmoes anyone know if champaca C02 is the same as Micheala alba?
I have been finding the interchanged on certain EO sites.
Thanks!
The botanical name for the plant it’s extracted from is Michelia alba, so I would check that against whatever you are purchasing. According to Wikipedia it’s also known as “white champaca, white sandalwood, or white jade orchid tree”.
Hi Marie, the perfume is so lovely, I made Secret Garden and Beguiling Embrace as well. Really like them. Also wanted to ask how you measure Labdanum correctly. I don’t think I was able to do that right and would be nice to get some tips from you on that for future makings.
Thanks..:)
Thanks, Regina! For the perfume recipes I am mostly eyeballing it—the quantities are so tiny (I usually make only 5mL at a time), that weighing them is difficult, but you could scale the recipe up and work by weight if you want 🙂
Hello! I was wondering, is it possible to use a solubilizer instead of perfumery alcohol when making perfumes? As I have sensitive skin I though I’d prefer it if possible but should I? Would it serve the same? Thanks a lot!
I’m honestly not sure why anybody would choose solubilizer when they could use the carrier oil alternative mentioned in the recipe, especially if you are concerned about sensitive skin. Solubilizer is definitely not the same thing as alcohol and won’t do the same thing, and I would not choose to apply it directly to my skin in such high concentrations given any other alternative—not that it’s bad, there are just much better things to put on your skin!
Sorry, I explained myself wrong! I’m thinking of making a body spray, and the recipes I found combine essential oils and perfumery alcohol, and add lots of water. So I was thinking, to avoid the alcohol, why not use solubilizer, just like you did in your Christmas Eve Pillow Mist? As I’m not a pillow maybe it wouldn’t work, in means of the scent not sticking to skin, longevity etc, that’s what I tried to ask 🙂
Well, that would be an entirely different thing. You’d be adding three new ingredients (you’d need a preservative as well) and greatly decreasing the potency of the final product. It will work, but I’m not sure how the melding part will go, and you’d be making something entirely different.
Hi Marie. I’m glad to find your perfume recipes. I’ve also had problems getting perfumery alchohol, we have strict alchohol laws here in Finland. There are only 60 % vodka available…or desinfection stuff :(. Diluting MPG would propably be safer than that, need to read more about it.
I just had an idea: I could use some natural ecocert. alchohol based solubilizer as a perfume base. The one (Disper)I bought from Aroma-Zone has 82 % natural alchohol! Based on inci and my reading, it seems safe, so I’ll test it directly on my skin first. I can only use 20 % eo’s with that but it’s better than nothing. There are so many “natural solubilizers” out there that could work.
Btw, Will your perfumes stay clear? Do you need to shake them occasionally?
It sounds worth a try! Be sure to look for any maximum concentrations they might list for skin use 🙂 You could also try isopropyl myristate (IPM)!
I find perfumes that mostly use essential oils stay clear, but some heavier resinoids can settle over time. Happy making!
Hi marie! Is it possible to use IPM for perfume spray? How can you use it?
Probably! It’s not something I’ve experimented with, though 🙂
Hi Marie! o love this perfume! I would like to know what is the shelf life, also, I am trying to make a large batch to sell, can the same quantities be used but on a large scale? Do i need to use any preservatives?… thank you