How To Make A Custom DIY Perfume

Perfumery is an art form that dates back to ancient Egypt. Egyptians utilized scents in everything from religious ceremonies to burial preparations and even daily wear. 

The Persians took over the use of perfume as a sign of political status, but it wasn’t until the Greeks and Romans became acquainted with it that it began to be viewed as a form of art and produced en masse and in consistent quality.

Today, perfumers have up to 10,000 different ingredients on their palettes when creating a fragrance. That’s a whole lot of scents to choose from, which means SO much room for creativity and customization!

what is a perfume? 

A perfume is simply utilizing a fragrance and adding it into a carrier. You can use alcohol, a balm, or an oil. 

making perfume

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own luxurious, sensuous perfume, follow the easy steps below and you’ll be well on your way to crafting scent-sational magic to make part of your brand, gift to loved ones, or all of the above.

We recommend starting with our Ultimate Perfume Making Kit which includes all the ingredients, tools, and recipes you’ll need to learn the art of perfumery. This kit was made for fragrance lovers!

It includes 36 unique accords that you can blend and experiment with plus all of the tools you’ll need like a scale, pipettes, a beaker for mixing, a journal to note down your recipes, and bottles to save your favorite creations.

getting started

Here’s what you’ll need to create your custom perfume.

You can find all of these supplies inside the Ultimate Perfume Making Kit as well as separately.

• digital scale
• pipettes
• 1.7 oz glass beaker
• one or several accords
• perfumers alcohol
• glass stir stick
• 1.7oz aspen glass perfume spray bottle

the recipe

• 3 grams of fragrance (you can break this up however you like between top, heart, and base accords)
• 7 grams of perfumers alcohol
• 30% fragrance to 70% alcohol

You can easily scale this recipe if you want to make more. Simply adjust your quantities and use a larger beaker. 

There are lots of sample recipes featuring blends of different accords inside the Ultimate Perfume Making Kit. We also include coconut oil - fractionated mct as an alternate carrier to make a perfume oil.

steps to make a diy perfume

1. Determine your ratio of ingredients. Since we are using a .33oz spray bottle, we are going to use 70% perfumers alcohol and 30% fragrance oil, which is 7 grams of perfumers alcohol and 3 grams of fragrance. Anytime you make perfume, using 20 - 30% fragrance oil is going to give you a nice, strong, lingering scent.
2. Measure/weigh your alcohol base. Place your beaker on top of your scale and tare out your beaker on the scale’s settings so it doesn’t get weighed with your perfume blend. Add 7 grams of alcohol to your beaker. The alcohol is easily going to hold your high fragrance load of 20 -30% when making perfume.
3. Add your fragrance. Pour 3 grams into your beaker and blend your ingredients for 1 -2 minutes so they fully mix together.  
4. Make your perfume spray-ready! After blending your fragrance and alcohol, your perfume is ready to use (so easy, right)! Pour your perfume into a .33 oz spray bottle.
5. Spray yourself with your new creation and enjoy your new favorite scent!

helpful perfume making videos

Not to worry, we have so many more tips to help you become a perfume pro!

• Watch this video to see these steps in action, how to make a perfume.
• To improve your fragrance blend skills, follow these tips for formulating fragrances.
• Learn how to evaluate your fragrance blends and make perfumes you’ll love.

Ready to try making your own perfume? Explore all of our supplies for perfumery here including all the supplies listed at the top of this blog. 

If you want to learn another fun and easy diy project utilizing your custom fragrance, try making a soy wax blend candle or melt & pour soap.

Don’t forget to show off your diy magic on Instagram and tag us @makesy so we can share them with the world!

Happy making!