How-to: blend perfumes

Sick of sniffing your fragrance on other women? Then why not make your scent more unique by creating your very own perfume hybrid? Armed with the right knowledge, you can layer your perfumes to produce your own personalised scent – and you can be rest assured that no one else will be wearing it!

Here’s what you need to know about scent-layering…

Notes
To mix different perfume scents you need to have an understanding of how different perfume notes work together – whereas some notes work in harmony, others can clash and cause an undesirable scent, so you need to know what works with what. There are two ways to combine scents – you can pick contrasting notes or similar notes.

Contrasting notes that work well together
Woody notes, such as those found in perfumes containing sandalwood, cedar and guaic wood, create an appealing and striking contrast when layered over smooth, creamy notes such as those found in perfumes rich in vanilla, chocolate and coconut.

Complementary perfumes
Floral fragrances compliment creamy scents nicely and woods work well in combination with citrusy scents, such as those found in perfumes rich in lemon, orange and lime. Herbal scents such as mint and basil also work well layered over fruity scents such as berry-based fragrances.

Layering
When making perfume by blending scents, it is ideal to stick to two perfumes. Working with more than two perfumes can lead to an overpowering scent. To layer your scents, hold one bottle in each hand and spray a single pump of each perfume into the air at the same time. Immediately walk through the mist. The airborne perfume particles will be attracted to one another and fuse together to create a unique hybrid scent. Pretty nifty, eh?