Perfumes and Scents at home

It's difficult to recreate some of the modern perfumes because they use artificially created scents, bases and stabilizers as ingredients but you can make a variety of eau de colognes, or light perfumes with "raw" ingredients. Use scented flowers, herbs, and citrus peels. You can have beautiful roses in your garden, or receive them as a gift, but if they have little to no scent they won't make perfume.

If you don't have time to make perfume but still want your home deliciously scented use reed diffusers and essential oils. Reed diffusers have about 20 hollow straw like spaces which draw up the scented diffuser oil and then diffuse it into the air.

Any flower that is scented can be used, don't be limited by these suggestions.

Jasmine

Geranium

Lavender

Rose

Four O'clock

Nicotania

Orange or other citrus blossoms

Gardenia

Basil

Lemon Balm

Citrus leaves

Rosemary

Citrus peels, colored part only, leave the white pith

Combine one cup of the petals of your favorite flower, leaves from the herb, or combination of both in a glass jar. Pour in ¼ cup of vodka, the higher proof the better. Shake. Push the petals gently so they're covered by the vodka. Cover the mouth of the jar with plastic wrap. Put in a cool dark place for 24 hours. Strain the petals out of the vodka. Save the vodka. Put fresh petals in the jar and cover with the saved vodka, add enough to cover the fresh petals. Put in a cool dark place for 24 hours. At this point the vodka should have the scent of your flowers. You can repeat the process a few more times to increase the strength of the scent.

Experiment with different combinations of scents. Keep the perfume in the smallest bottle possible. You can find apothecary type brown bottles at craft stores and health food stores.

Dee