How to make essential oil blends at home (with Hairy Jayne favourites)
If you love essential oils as much as I do, you’ll enjoy making up your own essential oil blends to use at home. Diffusing essential oils is a great way to naturally fragrance your home. And if you fancy making your own DIY beauty products, learning how to make your own essential oil blends will add beautiful, mood-boosting fragrance to your handmade creations.
Essential oils are used in aromatherapy, a holistic treatment that uses these potent natural plant extracts to promote well-being. They are essence of a plant’s fragrance. The seeds, flowers, leaves, bark, resin, roots and fruits are used in various extraction processes (including steam, expression and pressing) to create these aromatic compounds. They are different to ‘fragrance oils’ which are synthetic substances made in a laboratory.
Four Hairy Jayne-inspired essential oil blends for you to make at home
Scent is so personal to everyone. One person may absolutely love a scent, while another can be reminded of an unpleasant memory by smelling the very same thing. That’s the reason why I created a choice of different essential oil blends for our Hairy Jayne hair perfumes and hair care formulations – so that people could pick and choose the fragrance they love the most, or whichever matches their mood best.
Hairy Jayne hair care products have three signature fragrances – Floral, Citrus and Musk – as well as the newer hair-enhancing Herbal blend for our shampoo bars. I’ve simplified the blends in the following recipes so that you can use them in your creations as a starting point. Or you might just be inspired by them to make your own essential oil blends.
Essential things to know before making your own essential oil blends
1. Do not put essential oils straight onto your skin. They’re every potent and can cause skin to react, so they need to be diluted first. The legal safety limit in the UK for all commercial cosmetics is only 1-2% of the whole formulation (and less for children’s products).
2. If you’ve had allergies, irritations or reactions to plants, or are sensitive to fragrances, always use essential oils with caution.
3. It’s not recommended to use essential oils while pregnant, trying to concieve or breastfeeding as they can affect the hormones.
4. Essential oils are not to be taken internally (swallowed).
5. Essential oils are flammable, so keep them away from naked flames.
6. Keep the lids on when not in use. Essential oils are volatile substances which means they can evaporate easily.
7. If you start to lose your sense of smell when using essential oils, you can reset your nostrils by sniffing coffee (pre-brewed). Coffee acts as a sort of ‘palate cleanser’ between sniffs.
Blending basics for creating a balanced fragrance blend
Creating a balanced fragrance involves blending top, middle and base notes. Top notes are what you smell first in a fragrance. The scent then develops to the middle notes, and then the longer-lasting base notes.
There are no hard-and-fast rules about which essential oils are definitively top, middle or base notes. But generally speaking, citrus and ‘fresh’ oils are top notes. Middle notes are the main body of the fragrance and generally come from flowers and trees. Base notes are the heaviest, and because of their larger molecules, they take longer to evaporate.
When creating a blend, a good place to start is to choose an essential oil that you love, that puts you in a good mood, and work around that. A good rule of thumb is to have a top, middle and base note.
But remember, rules are made to be broken! As you can see in my blends below – the Musk is a heavy double base blend and the Herbal has no top note at all. And they still smell lovely!
Creating Hairy Jayne-inspired essential oil blends
I recommend starting with the blend that sounds like it appeals to you most! Are you a Floral, Citrus, Musk or Herbal kinda person?
For the blends below, the measurements are in drops and the drop count equals 20. 20 drops of essential oil makes 1ml in volume, which is usually enough to use in one of our DIY beauty product recipes. To create a bigger blend of 20ml, use the measurements in millilitres instead. You will need small digital scales (that measure in 1g increments) to do so.
Floral blend (smells a bit like Turkish Delight)
7 x Bergamot (top)
9 x Geranium (middle)
4 x Benzoin (base)
Citrus blend (reminiscent of Sherbert Lemons)
14 x Grapefruit (top)
4 x May Chang (top)
2 x Ylang Ylang (base)
Musk blend (woodsy-floral, a bit like incense)
11 x Neroli (top)
2 x Vetiver (base)
7 x Patchouli (base)
Herbal blend (fresh, the oils specifically benefit hair and scalp)
8 x Rosemary (middle)
7 x Lavender (middle)
5 x Clary Sage (base)
All of the essential oils have been sourced for you in 10ml (200 drop) bottles already and can be found here. More information about each oil can be found under its listing, too.
Or you can now purchase them already pre-blended for you.
[product=floral-essential-oil-blend]
Hairy Jayne's Floral blend, 10ml
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[product=citrus-essential-oil-blend]
Hairy Jayne's Citrus blend, 10ml
[/product]
[product=musk-essential-oil-blend]
Hairy Jayne's Musk blend, 10ml
[/product]
[product=herbal-essential-oil-blend]
Hairy Jayne's Herbal blend, 10ml
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Fancy making a hair oil with your new blend? Take a look our Make Your Own Bespoke Hair Oil recipe pdf which teaches you how to select and mix the best carrier oils for your hair type.
Let me know if you make your own essential oil blends and which ones you make! I’d love to hear what you thought of the fragrance and what you’ll be using it for. Send me a message or tag us on Instagram or Facebook with your handmade creations.