Hello My Friends,
I've been saying for ages that I wanted to start adding some DIY goodness to this neglected blog. My hope is to create at least one post per month with something fun for you to make or learn about. I have a whole list of fun little projects in the works for the upcoming months. Today we will be making rollerball perfume, so skip a shower and get ready to smell fantastic!
I wanted to start this year off with a fun project that was easy and giftable without requiring a big DIY commitment. Rollerball perfume fits the bill. Not only is it easy, but it smells good too. 😉 Okay, joking aside, this really is a great project or gift to make. You can customize these any way you'd like. such as adding dried flower petals or little semi-precious stones to the bottle for decoration. Pretty much the sky's the limit with this project.
You can either use fragrance oils or essential oils for this project. An important difference to make note of between fragrance oils and essential oils is in the usage rates. If you are using fragrance oils, you can use up to 20% as long as the usage rate of your specific fragrance allows for that. If you purchase your cosmetic-grade fragrance oils from a reputable supplier, they will have usage rates for each fragrance in what is called an IFRA sheet (usually found as a pdf or link on the product page). For oil-based perfumes, you will want to check the percentage listed in category 5A. This is a great explanation of how to understand the IFRA sheets.
Remember, it is really important to know the max usage rate of your fragrance so that you do not go over it. Even though a fragrance is skin safe, it can still be irritating if it is too concentrated, just like with essential oils. Also, some fragrances have very low usage rates and might not work well in perfume as they wouldn't be strong enough.
Okay, that's all fine and dandy, but you're a natural, granola type and you wouldn't be caught dead using fragrance oils! Don't worry, I got you! The maximum rate of essential oils you can use in this sort of application is 3%, BUT... Of course, it's not that easy. You will need to run the essential oil or essential oil blend through a calculator to make sure that your percentage is going to be safe to use on your skin. EOCalc is a great calculator to use, however, I'm going to give you a little tutorial on how to use this as it can be confusing at first.
Go to Calculate Your Own Blend
If you want to use one oil or a blend you're going to need the percentage to total 100%.
Try this blend as an example: 60% Orange EO, 20% Pink Grapefruit EO, & 20% Cedarwood.
Now scroll down to the next section and add the amount that your rollerball can hold. For a 10ml bottle, choose 9 grams and then choose the category/product (oil-based perfume) and calculate.
Scroll down a little bit and you will see each of the essential oils you chose with usage rates based on the amount and percentages you entered into the calculator. Make sure that none of the cells in the table are colored red as this will mean that the percentage rate you wanted to use is too high.
If everything is good to go, you are ready to make your perfume!
Let's talk about materials for this project. You will need:
Rollerball bottles
Fractionated Coconut Oil (AKA liquid coconut oil.)
Fragrance of your choice
A scale that can measure in grams*
Pipettes or a tiny funnel**
*If you can invest in a pocket scale it will make your life much easier. They can be found pretty inexpensively for around $10 or so online. I think this little one in the picture was around $12.
** Pipettes or droppers will make this whole process go smoothly and will keep you from accidentally wasting anything if a spill happens. Sometimes rollerball bottles will come with a little funnel and a couple of pipettes. Just FYI.
Let's use the essential oil blend I created for this as our example fragrance and I'll walk you through the directions below. Ignore the scale weight in the picture below. I forgot to take a picture adding in the essential oil and I went back to do that but forgot to tare the scale. It wouldn't be fun without me doing this sort of thing, right!
Figure out the volume of your rollerball container. (Most rollerball containers are usually 1/3 ounce or 10 ml.) and convert the percentages into grams for easier measuring. In our case, we are using a 10 ml bottle which converts roughly to 9 grams.
Remove the lid and rollerball attachment. Put the bottle on your scale and tare it out so you can begin measuring your essential oil.
We are using a maximum of 3% essential oil and I know from EOCALC that I will need 0.27 g of essential oil to equal 3% of the 9 gram volume. With our blend, this will break down like this:
0.162 g - Sweet Orange EO
0.054 g - Pink Grapefruit EO
0.054 g - Cedarwood EO
Add 8.73 g of fractionated coconut oil. Your bottle should be full with enough room to add the rollerball attachment back on.
Replace rollerball attachment and lid.
Label your perfume.
Voila! You now have a lovely uplifting perfume!
If you want to use a fragrance oil make sure that your fragrance oil can be used at a 20% concentration. If you discover that it can only be used at a lower percentage, you can adjust the fractionated coconut oil to make up the difference. Just be aware that your perfume may not be as strong depending on the percentage of fragrance used.
If we broke down a 20% fragrance oil version of this into grams it would look something like this.
1.80 g Fragrance Oil
7.20 g Fractionated Coconut Oil
You get the idea.
Play around with this. Add some dried flower petals or a few semi-precious gemstones and have fun.
I put together a PDF so you can print it out and use it as a reference, so be sure to download it and print it out.
I would love to see your creations, so if you want to send me a picture with a little scratch and sniff action (someone invent this, please) I'd love it! Until next time my friends! Stay awesome!
