Solid Perfume with Bourbon and Vanilla Essential Oils

Scent is inextricably linked to the acts of cooking and eating. My nose tells me when the onions are getting ready to caramelize, and it warns me that if I don’t take the skillet off the heat right this second, the pecans will be beyond toasted. As a child I would rub vanilla extract behind my ears as “perfume.”  In my later teenage years, I discovered Demeter fragrances. These perfumes embodied the scents of foods (Lemon Meringue Pie, etc). Recently, I decided to experiment with DIY solid perfume and capture some of my favorite food scents into wearable, easy DIY solid perfumes.

Solid Perfume with Essential Oils

Once, when I was about 12, I saw a lip balm kit (of course, it was a Martha Stewart product). What intrigued me was the essential oils included: my favorite food scents: grapefruit, tangerine, peppermint, and vanilla essential oils. Coincidentally, these are some of my favorite kitchen scents. I begged my mother to buy it for me for Christmas. Luckily for me, she complied, and a DIYer was born.I quickly burned through the 24 included tubes and pots. I made combinations of peppermint-vanilla and tangerine-grapefruit, which I thought (at the time) was pretty ingenious.

As an adult, I’ve graduated to combinations like Madagascar-vanilla and bourbon (a classic and delicious pairing) and fig, grapefruit and rhubarb. Want to make your own? All you need is some beeswax pastilles or bars, a carrier oil like sweet almond oil, essential oils of your choice, and some tins. I ordered some cute sticker labels, as well.

Solid Perfume with Bourbon and Vanilla Essential Oils

To make the base, you melt the beeswax and almond oil together over a double boiler (I use a glass bowl set over a saucepan), take it off the heat, add your drops of essential oils, and pour it into the container of your choice. Before I settled on these tins, I recycled mint tins. It’s up to you! Why not get creative? I ordered some vintage lockets on eBay and poured a few teaspoons of the mixture into one. Instant wearable perfume, in more ways than one.

Solid Perfume with Bourbon and Vanilla Essential Oils
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DIY Solid Perfume

Kitchen-inspired scents to wear anywhere and everywhere, these solid perfumes are an easy DIY with beeswax, almond oil, and essential oils.

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Servings 3 tins
Author Amanda

Ingredients

  • 1/2 ounce beeswax one half of a 1-ounce bar
  • 2 tablespoons sweet almond oil
  • 50-60 drops essential oils of your choice

Instructions

  1. Melt beeswax and almond oil together in a glass bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.

  2. When wax is completely melted, take off heat.

  3. Add essential oils and stir thoroughly.

  4. Quickly and carefully pour into tins of your choice.

  5. Put the lids on the tins as soon as you can, to prevent scent evaporation.

Solid Perfume with Bourbon and Vanilla
Notes: I buy my oils from quality candle-fragrance companies like Candle Science. Whatever you use, be sure that each essential oil is skin-safe. If you want to use this formula as a lip balm, just make sure each oil you use is allowed for use on lips. Some essential oils are not. Never use any essential oils directly on skin (without a carrier oil) unless expressly labeled as safe to do so.