This lovely, summery perfume is an uplifting blend of floral and fruity, with a soft, sweet base. It has the sweetness of a well-tended garden on a hot summer day, and an exotic undercurrent that I find both exciting and intriguing.
Something about this blend makes me think of a first date on a summer afternoon that’s just going brilliantly. One of those dates where neither of you want to go home, so you go for a walk after grabbing a tea, and then grab drinks, and then just wander around until you well and truly have to part, well after the sun has set. One of those dates.
The top notes are bright citrus and sugar, which blend down into iced tea and a hint of zest. The base is warm vanilla with exotic floral notes, like the scent of unknown flowers drifting towards you on a summer breeze. I find the combination makes me think of classic perfumes that were popular in the early part of the last century, which is what brought me to the name—Secret Garden.
If you’re familiar with the classic story I feel like the parallels work quite nicely. The classic, rich perfumery notes, with an exotic hint from abroad. The sweetness and excitement, and the optimistic innocence of it. Perhaps I’ve been listening to the soundtrack from the Broadway show too much, but I’m enjoying the analogy.
I’ve found this blend improves immensely with age—I’d recommend giving it a few months before wearing it to allow everything to mellow out, or you may find the citrus/floral notes to be a bit strong.
Secret Garden: A Perfume
25% palmarosa essential oil
15% frankincense essential oil
18% michelia alba essential oil
10% bergamot essential oil
32% benzoin essential oilEqual volume perfumery alcohol
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.
I believe with the notes in this scent creation jojoba oil would be lovely. It has a scent that would mix very nicely with these and doesn’t go rancide easily, plus its a silky goodness your skin loves. Not something I recommend heavily on skin its quite thick but in nice stratigically placed dabs here and there , or properly mixed with other oils, it would be lovely. I have this on hand a lot do to my lotion making so it will be what I use for now. But vodka maybe a future move.
Hi Tanya! You definitely can use a carrier oil if you don’t have perfumery alcohol on hand, but I can’t speak for how the scent will age in oil 🙂
Ooh this sounds absolutely lovely! Can’t wait to try this! I haven’t tried making any of your perfume yet because I haven’t gotten around to ordering the perfumery alcohol but I definitely will now!
Thank you! I look forward to hearing of your adventures when you delve into perfumery 🙂
If it smells half as good as the description then this scent should come with a warning.
Thanks, Neil! 🙂
Wow…this sounds like a great one…but I am getting behind making all these, and hey…if you are making up perfume for women, how about something for us guys?
My wife just bought me a bottle of Creed Millesime Imperial at $175 for 30ml. She got 2 doz. long stem red roses….
Anyway, I thought to myself that I could save a lot of money if you developed a cologne recipe for men that I could make.
Thanks as always
Good idea! I will keep my nose out for more manly scents and see what I can come up with 🙂
In the USA, BrambleBerry.com sells Isopropyl Alcohol (99%), 16 oz, for $5.00. This fragrance looks wonderful!
My only concern with using 99% isopropyl alochol is its smell—it reeks! I would recommend doing experiments with it to see if the scent dissipates agreeably before committing a bunch of essential oils to the project 🙂
hello, to make me envy you send me a photo with all of your essential oils
Paola
Wow, you make this sound so good…. you could be a writer! This is the prettiest description of any product I have ever heard before 🙂
Thanks, Mylan!
I’ve never tried making a perfume before but this looks really simple…I can almost smell it. Since it’s grey and miserable outside at the moment, it could be an uplifting fragrance whilst we’re waiting for the first signs of Spring!
Thanks, Lorraine! It’s definitely helping bridge that gap for me 🙂
Hi sweety! very nice recipe (as always of course)…and i want to ask you something again!…i want to ask you that I found this very nice atomizer
if you have a store that you get from there…I’ve been looking around the internet to find but I did not find anything! thanks in advance!…Greetings from Greece!…
Hi Athanasia! I get pretty much all my packaging from the two suppliers I’ve linked to in the big box above the comments 🙂
Hi Marie,
Is there a substitute for the michelia alba? I am having a hard time finding it at the suppliers I usually use. As always I love your posts.
No, sorry, it’s a super unique essential oil that is totally essential to the character of the perfume.
Sounds awesome, but where can I get michelia alba essential oil?
I got mine from New Directions Aromatics—link in the big box above the comments 🙂
Hello,
Noob question here but I’m having the most difficult time filling my 1 oz cobalt glass bottles. I got them in the 1 oz size so I would use up the product but whenever I have to remake the batches I’m better off doubling it as most will go over the bottle, not in 🙁
I’ve tried funnels, spouted measuring spoons, pipepetes, bottle to bottle…any light bulbs you can offer would be most appreciated 🙂
Hi Ashke! I use a fine-tip funnel, and it works really well. I do find you need to pour slowly, and sometimes you need to pull the funnel up a bit and tap it to get everything to flow through and let the air out of the bottle. Maybe try practicing with water to get the hang of it?
I know you probably get tired of this question after you work so hard on your recipes, but is there a substitute that might work in place of the michelia alba essential oil? It is the only one I don’t have, but I would like to try this perfume. Too impatient to wait until my next order lol!
Hi Sarah! Sorry, but the michelia alba is a super unique, defining note in this perfume. If you replace it with something it’ll completely change the entire perfume.
No worries 🙂 I have never experienced this essential oil so I don’t know what it smells like. Price is reasonable at New Directions so I will add it to my next order and just be patient. Thank you for all of your great ideas and hard work.
🙂
Hi Marie, are you using michelia alba leaf EO or michelia alba flower EO? Thanks
Leaf 🙂
Ugg, I wish I could get a good perfume alcohol as the place I go to had the alcohol denatured by quite a bit of methanol which is gonna reek and I’m not comfortable putting high methanol stuff on me…
Why not just use strong vodka or everclear? There’s no reason your alcohol has to be denatured.
Hi Ms. Wonderful,
Can I use this as a base: http://www.chemistrystore.com/Soap_Making_Supplies-Perfumers_Base.html
Eh… I think so? It sure sounds like it’s designed to be a perfume base, so why not?
I finally sourced the Michelia Alba to make this perfume.
WOW Marie.
You are squarely in the realm of Master perfume designer with this one.
I had been enjoying the uplifting, happy scent without the Michelia Alba for several months. Adding it finally was like rounding out the top edges, like resolving a dissonant chord. What a fresh, uplifting, garden-y scent. And very unique. (I didn’t enjoy my Palmarosa until this.)
If you can make this blend, do!
Keep up with the genius blending, Marie. Thank you so much. xo
Thank you so much, Amy! I’m so thrilled you are loving this 😀 I should definitely haul out my EOs and try some more perfumes, they are so fun!
Hi Marie! I have interesting results with this parfume. I used this blend for a shower gel. At a tiny 0,5%, not quite planned it that way, but this is how it turned out.
It smells like black tea. I don’t know how this happened given your description is so different perhaps the blend of plantapon + lamesoft influence the end the result. Love it by the way, it is so delicate!
Hey Natasha! Palmarosa smells a lot like tea, so that’s what’s happening there 🙂 I’m not sure what “plantapon” or “lamesoft” are, though! Thanks for DIYing with me and happy making!
Dear Marie,
How does the Essential oil dermal limits apply when making perfume? I have Essential oil safety by Robert Tisserand as my reference.
In the formula here Essential oil quantity is at 50%. Does this come under Fine perfume?
Here is my understanding about making eau de toilette. The maximum essential oil usage percentage is 15% and the rest is alcohol. https://essentialoils.co.za/recipes.htm
In this 15% if i am going to add lets say sandalwood oil whose maximum dermal limit is 2%. What is the maximum % that can be used? The 2% probably would be good enough but in theory till what % is safe?
Hey! I’m afraid I don’t have a great answer for you, which is part of the reason I haven’t made perfume since learning more about dermal limits. I was speaking with a perfumer a few months ago who was sharing that it is quite a challenge to sell natural/essential oil based perfumes in the EU as the legal limits there are extremely hard for perfumers to work around. I would likely stick with what Tisserand says, keeping in mind that perfumes are typically only applied to small areas of the body—I believe there is a passage in the book regarding area of application in regards to concentration? Best of luck and happy making!
Thanks Marie. Appreciate taking your time to respond.