Essential oil is a concentrated liquid which comes from plants that contains volatile aroma compounds. They are known ethereal oils or ‘oil of’ the plants from which they are extracted. It is essential in the sense that it carries a distinctive scent of the plant. Essential oils don’t need to have any common specific properties beyond conveying characteristic fragrances.

Essential oils are extracted through distillation, other process include solvent extraction. They are used in perfumes, cosmetics, bath products, food and drink flavoring and for scenting incense and household cleaning products.

How to make essential oils?

Ingredients:

>> ½ cup oil
>> 4 cups tightly packed flowers
>> Jar
>> Mallet
>> Zip lock Plastic bag
>> Cheesecloth

Procedure 1:

- Put 1 cup of flower inside the plastic bag and release as much air as you can before sealing.
- Bruise the flowers by hitting it with a mallet
- Mix it with oil and place it into a jar
- Seal the jar and store in warm place for about 2 days

Procedure 2:

- Use the cheesecloth to filter the mixture and return the oil into the jar
- Discard the filtered flower material
- Take the next cup of flower and repeat the bruising method
- Mix this with the oil from procedure 1
- Store in a warm place for 2 days

Note: Repeat the process with the remaining 2 cups of flower

Procedure 3:

- After the final straining, transfer the oil into a bottle
- Store in cool and dark place.

Source: wiki

Perfume as defined by Wikipedia is a mixture of fragrant used to give the human body a pleasant smell. Perfume have three sets of notes which makes the harmonious scent accord.   Notes are created carefully with the knowledge of the evaporation process of the perfume.

Top Notes – the scents are perceived immediately on the application of the perfume also called the head notes.
Middle Notes – the scent of a perfume that emerges just prior to when the top notes dissipate, also called the heart note.
Base Note – scent of the perfume that appears close to the departure of the middle notes. Base and middle notes are the main theme of the perfume.

Base notes which is the most sustainable part of the perfume are the richer, longer lasting scent sources. These bottom notes are the core of the perfume and are usually the heavier types of oils. For a solid foundation, oils used as base notes need to be intense, concentrated sources. Woody fragrances such as cedarwood and sandalwood are often the starter for perfumes, or the resins myrrh and frankincense.

Next in the art of how to make perfume comes the middle notes which gives the finished product its stability, and work with the notes on either side to provide a balanced aroma. Middle notes can be blended from oils in the softer category. Rose, chamomile and geranium are typical examples of middle notes.

The lightest, most delicate scents in perfume are the top notes. These are less durable than the other two categories, with the fragrance evaporating in a much shorter time. Giving the initial aroma, top note sources tend to be obtained from the citrus or floral types. Lemon and lime might be the choice, or perhaps bergamot or peppermint.

To bind everything together, the ingredients in the notes get a helping hand from bridge notes. Lavender oil is a good choice, and vanilla proves very popular too. Sometimes the oils can vary between the note categories, since it can be difficult to classify each source. Orange blossom, for instance, fits in to top and middle note sections, while cinnamon could count as either middle or bottom notes.

Blending together all of these oils to get a beautiful finished fragrance takes a bit of know how. To make perfume notes complement each other, the oils need to be carefully balanced to avoid either an overpowering aroma, or a quickly evaporating smell.

Essential oils are the product of extracted natural sources, such as plants, flowers, trees, fruit and animals. Natural oils can be expensive, and sometimes hard to obtain. Fragrance oils contain chemically re-created aromas, and can be good substitutes for natural oils that are no longer available. Musk is one of these, as it’s an animal-based product no longer considered acceptable for cosmetic production. Finding resources for how to make perfume with synthetic oils however, can lead to inferior oil products that have little resemblance to the original!