Once you’ve mastered the art of working with essential oils and making fragrances, the understanding of fragrance terminology can help you improve your scent game – a lot. Whether you are self-formulating fragrances or looking to incorporate a specific essential oil for an occasion, an appreciation of the fragrance language helps you explain, appreciate, and enjoy fragrance better. In this guide, you will find the meaning of some of the terms incorporated in the scent glossary as the major terms to improve your fragrance, Wilson. Such knowledge can be applied to your quest to learn all the wonderful things about essential oils.
Accord
Accord in the world of perfume making means taking a few different notes together and creating a new note that is different from the individual components. This is not merely a single note, but a well-balanced composition of many notes, all of which contribute to the key elements of the fragrance. In the case of essential oils for relief of stress for example, if one takes lavender, rose, and bergamot tea, the outcome is a floral aroma that is calming and can be incorporated into personal or calming blends.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: The best part about creating your own accords is that you can do it with the natural essences that you have; essential oils! Consider combining bottom notes such as sandalwood with mid notes like floral ylang-ylang for anaerobic synthesis for a balanced scent.
Notes
Most perfumes are organized into 3 levels or layers of scents also known as notes:
- Top Notes: These are the first scents you smell when you apply a fragrance. They are light, fresh, and often citrusy or herbal, but they evaporate quickly. Think lemon or peppermint essential oils.
- Heart (Middle) Notes: After the top notes Virtually recede, these perfumes flourishing within the heart of the fragrance can often be called heart notes. Lavender and rose geranium, in fused proportions become the most compelling dynamic heart notes.
- Base Notes: Once all the other types of notes have evaporated, only base notes are sustained.Customary base notes include cedarwood, patchouli and sandalwood which are said to provide the fragrance with deep heat and longevity.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: Always start with a top note, let it dry a bit and apply the heart note and upon drying apply the base note for better formulation of essential oils.
Sillage
Sillage pronounced ‘see-yazh’ refers to the mark that the fragrance leaves in its wake. When sillage is high, one would leave the room with strong traces of the fragrance, even as they walk about the room. Sillage tends to be focused around essential oils such as jasmine and patchouli, which makes it ideal for perfumes which one would want to make a statement and leave on the skin a while.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: If you are looking for ways to create a sillage that is subtle, consider infusing jasmine essential oil with other very light oils such as bergamot in order to obtain a constellated scent that clings softly.
Dry Down
The term refers to the latter stage of a fragrance after the top and heart notes have disappeared. What is left are the base notes, the essence and strength of which lies in its last remaining notes. During the dry down stage, feisty or resinous essential oils such as vetiver or cedarwood take center stage as these oils may last for hours on the body.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: This is why always add base notes that is heavy like vetiver into your fragrance combinations so that an enduring dry down can be achieved that lasts all day.
Fragrance Family
Fragrances can be classified into various fragrance families according to their primary scent. Below are some of the prominent fragrance families.
- Blooming: features the scents of flowers such rose, jasmine and geraniums.
- Fruity: This family includes scents with refreshing and zesty oils such as orange, lemon and grapefruit.
- Green: Sweet, earthy fragrance that emerges from cedarwood, sandalwood and patchouli oils.
- Spices: Exciting scents with a spicy and warm essence complemented with vanilla, cloves or frankincense.
- Crisp: Soft and sweet fragrances featuring scents of peppermint, eucalyptus and bergamot.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: Your ideal fragrance, lighter or heavier, must be chosen from the various fragrance families you may like. You may prefer the warm, woody base of cedarwood or the soft floral note of lavender.
Concentration
Concentration is a very good description of different types or categories of fragrances which simply express the ratio of fragrance oils in the formula to the other component most likely water or alcohol. Break it down like this:
- Perfume: The most concentrated of the forms and can have up to 20-30% fragrance oil in the product.
- Eau de Parfum (EDP): A little less concentrated than the first one with a fragrance oil content of about 15-20%.
- Eau de Toilette (EDT): Contains relatively less fragrance oil from 5-15%.
- Eau de Cologne: Contains the least amount of all and that is 2-4% fragrance oil.
If you are going to make essential oils based homemade perfumes, these would classify as perfume types since essential oils are very concentrated oils. If you want to control how much perfume you wear, try mixing the oils with a carrier oil like jojoba or sweet almond oil.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: Essential oils can be blended with HBNO’s pure jojoba oil to obtain exquisite perfumes made by yourself at home.
Projection
Projection refers to the distance scent radiates from the body. It is some how similar to sillage; however, instead of referring to the scent that is left behind after a person who has worn the scent leaves, projection refers to the measure of the distance across which the scent is splayed out. Certain essential oils such as peppermint and clove are however known to be very projecting, meaning they can be smelled from afar.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: If you want a scent that will be snug to the skin with little projection, go for the less vocal oils like juniper berry, or chamomile.
Blending
Blending involves the ginger of root oils in order to produce a harmonious and desired scent. In blending, it is important to appreciate that some oils go well with each other whereas some do not. A fresh citrus oil such as lemon makes a good top note and will not clash with a woody note and perhaps base oil of sandalwood.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: When doing the blending, it is advisable to begin with few oils, perhaps two to three, then increase in number gradually. A combination of lavender oil, sweet orange oil, and sandalwood oil is suitable for all beginners as the blend is soft and does not pose much of a threat.
Fixative
Some fixative is a substance for fixing and extending the longevity of a fragrance. In essential oil perfumes, base note oils like sandalwood or patchouli have the functions of natural fixatives, enabling the top and heart notes to be extended further.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: Whenever you make a blend, consider including sandalwood essential oil as a natural fixative to help retain the overall aspect of the composition.
Essential Oil Synergy
When two or more essential oils come together, they might perform above and beyond what the separate parts are capable of producing. This is largely true for aromatherapy, where oils are most commonly used together for healing purposes.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: When making synergistic blends of essential oils try to combine oils that have opposite effects. For instance, as a basis use peppermint for refreshing and cooling effect, to which add calming and soothing lavender. Such compositions allow one to obtain an energizing and at the same time relaxing aroma.
One Scent Only
Single note fragrances are focused on one particular essential oil as opposed to several combined fragrances. Single note fragrances will suit individuals who enjoy the fragrances without much activity. Common examples of single note oils are rose, lavender and vanilla.
HBNO Essential Oils Tip: If you want to broaden your means of perfumery and the essence of the given flower reminds you of a precious jewel, then go for some single-note essential oils such as rose or oil of ylang-ylang.
Conclusion
To make the most out of essential oils, one must embrace some important terms in perfume making. These are the notes, sillage, and blending. With these concepts, it is possible to devise perfumes that are both personal and enduring. Everyone has their favorite top note be it the amped floral or christened woody for the undertones fragrance vocabulary helps in improving the scent designs.
For your every essential oil-related work, visit this site of HBNO and induce yourself into designing your own perfumes as this site has plenty of good quality oils. Making new scents is very fun!
