Your Favorite Blend

[shivashiva]

I am interested in making my own blend of essential oils and adding it to fragrance free massage oil. Probably on an 8oz bottle basis...or smaller for testing purposes, unless I find a blend I love enough to add to a whole gallon. I don't know much about aromatherapy and I don't have a book yet...though I'm probably getting one soon.

So far the simple blends I have used are:

Lavender + Sweet Orange
Lavender + Clary Sage


I like those a lot, but I am interested in making a more complex blend with 3 or more oils. I'm open to blends with tons of oils. Also, with the above blends, I'm never quite sure how much of each to put in and I usually end up overdoing it with the Orange. I have about 20 different scents right now. I can list them if you like, but I'm also happy to buy new oils to try new stuff, so I'm not limited to those oils.

I just don't have any sense regarding scents! lol and the few times I have tried to mix EOs together the scent always came out lacking, or too much. If you can give #of drops vs. oz. of oil, that would be helpful, too.

Thanks!

[Seebs]

Here's a few sites with fragrant EO blend recipes:

http://www.essential-oil-recipes.com/ar ... cipes.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~skinesscentuals/Form.html
http://community.basenotes.net/showthread.php?t=158437
http://www.aromaweb.com/recipes/default.asp

It's hard to find actual fragrance recipes with drop ratios like these online, I know, I've searched! (And among those that are out there, many call for synthetic fragrance oils rather than essential oils/absolutes; there is no such thing as a natural steam distilled or even solvent extracted gardenia oil, nor peony, lily of the valley, or freesia.) Perfumery is an art, natural perfumery a particularly rare art, and those who are experienced enough to make fantastic blends seem to hold those recipes close as trade secrets. There's probably books that have more, but you may have to learn about methods of blending and stuff like top, middle, and base notes. It's interesting, but time consuming.

If you're looking for simpler, more therapeutic remedy blends, here's a couple sites to browse:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/ ... cinal.html
http://www.time4me.com/theme/newage/aro ... ampler.htm
http://www.onlynature.co.uk/practical.html

I'd recommend against adding one fragrance to an entire gallon, even when you find a blend you like. Just because you like it doesn't mean 100% of your clients will like it, and some may even have contraindicated conditions for an oil in the blend.

Good luck and have fun!

[shivashiva]

Thank you so much! The links really help. I had looked online and been unable to find those kinds of recipes myself. It makes sense that people would guard their recipes.

And I'll take your advice about the gallon. Good point!

Thanks again

[AngEngland]

One of my favorite blends recently with a client was a relaxation meditation blend.

Lavender - 10 drops
Tangerine - 8 drops
Sandalwood - 1 or 2 drops depending on strength of sandalwood, in my case it turned out more like 1 1/2 drops. *laughing*

In a standard dilution of oil (I did mine in 2 ounces of base).

It was fantastic. I really, really liked it and I'm not usually a sandalwood kind of girl.

Angela <><

[shivashiva]

I already had a lavender + sweet orange mixed up, so I went and added 2 drops of Sandalwood to it and used it for a massage today. You're right! Wonderful. Just the kind of simple richness I was looking for.

Thanks.

[PremoMT]

One that sticks out in my head (although it was just 2 EO's) was Neroli and Vanilla. Smells like a yummy creamsicle! If I remember correctly, it was just equal parts of both.
I can't wait to get back into Eo's...

[AngEngland]

Premo - that reminds me of another I made into a salt scrub for a customer who wanted "fruity, vanilla, spicey". *laughing* I called it Cilla's Vanilla Dream and it turned out FANTASTIC.

10 vanilla
10 lavender
5 ginger
5 bergamot (or I guess sweet orange might work)
3 lemon/orange/other citrus
2 patchouli or sandalwood - your pick.

In an oil and salt mixture - it was very yummy. Very. She raved about it too and has since reordered another. :-)

Something else to play with shiva.

Angela <><

BTW - an easy way to play with essential oils and mixes is to get little strips of paper and wet one end of the paper with the oil (I don't even use a full giant drop) - write the name of the oil on the other end of the paper. You can mix and match them - start with an oil you know you want....say Ginger (and very nice oil for mixes) or Bergamot (another that sweetens most of the other oils). To judge "amount" of oil in the mix you can move one paper further away and another closer to you. Sometimes just wave them in the air together to get an idea of how the scents will mix.

Anywho - Glad the sandalwood worked out for you! It adds an amazing amount of texture and body to a mix for only using a drop or two doesn't it? I dislike sandalwood straight - but I LOVED the blend.

[shivashiva]

Ooooh, angela, that sounds SO good. (I always want to call you "ang" cause of your username! lol) I will have to get a couple EOs to make it, but I was planning on an order soon anyway to stock up. There have been some good links on that other thread about Bulk Oils for where to get stuff cheap.

And I LOVE the idea of Neroli + vanilla. I have both so that's definitely going to get tried sometime this week. I probably won't have enough empty bottles to try everything! But I love the idea of putting oils on paper and waving them around. VERY efficient! I will try it.

My question is what do ya'll use for vanilla? I have some "tahitian vanilla" fragrance oil that is a sort of tropical vanilla that I got from Snowdrift Farm awhile back. I like it, but it's not really a "straight" vanilla and maybe a bit too girly to be used in a unisex blend. My impression is that vanilla does not come as an Essential Oil. Or does it? Is there a natural way to get vanilla, or must one get a fragrance oil?

And either way, where do you get it?

[AngEngland]

I got mine from the essential oil supplier and it is more of an Oleoresin or extract. There can't be essential oil extraction from steam distillation like other oils so it's usually extracted via a solvent. I've been pretty pleased with the quality that I got but it's a crap shoot.

I'll bet Neroli would work great in the recipe I posted - maybe in the place of the sweet orange or the bergamot?

Angela <><

P.S. You can call me "Ang". My family calls me "Annie" becuase my nickname was Angie until my littlest sister couldn't pronounce it. :-D

[shivashiva]

Can you provide a link for that, cause I'm not sure what you mean by "essential oil supplier".

And also in my search I saw essential oil suppliers selling "vanilla extract"

Is that what I get from the grocery store and if so, is it okay to use stuff from the grocery store in EO-massage blends?

[AngEngland]

I sell it. :-) It's more concentrated than what you get in a grocery store - I've never heard of using a cooking extract but I suppose you could. It wouldn't be as concentrated though so I wonder what that would do to the blend.

http://yournaturalessentials.com/EssentialOils.aspx is my website (still VERY much in progress). Wholesale sales are 15% off.

Angela <><

[dhwmassage]

Greetings

It would be wise to get a basic education in the use of essential oils first.
Some oils can cause folks to break out in a rash when they expose their skin to the sun while using particular oils. There are other oils that should not be used on pregnant women.

The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood is my all time favorite.

[petedose]

I already had a lavender + sweet orange mixed up, so I went and added 2 drops of Sandalwood to it and used it for a massage today. You're right! Wonderful. Just the kind of simple richness I was looking for.

Thanks.

I know this is an older site but ims always messing with EO,s luv it
I have found using lavender and vanilla, I have seen aot of bussiness replic it
But if you want to also a few drops of camomile (relaxing)
And or jasmine makes a wonderful scents for bath,body,oil*nd scrubs. Let me know some others you have tried

[Dragonflies]

Just remember that vanilla is not a *true* essential oil as it cannot be extracted or distilled the same way other plant materials can be.

I also agree with dhwmassage about going for education in aromatherapy, especially the topical applications of essential oils. What are the contraindications to some of the oils discussed here? Which of these oils mentioned can cause phototoxicity or sensitivity to UV exposure?

[kathryn]

Here's the blend I use to mix with water in a 4oz spray bottle and spritz it after each client. I'm getting a lot of requests for it, eventually I will be packaging and selling my blends.......it's on my list!

Angelica root- 12 drops
Elemi- 12 drops
Red Thyme- 9 drops
Ti Tree- 9 drops
Clary Sage- 5 drops

Add about 3-4 drops of witch hazel to prevent pump from sticking.

[rosealfanso]

Lavender
Rosemary
Marjoram
Bay Laurel

These are the blends i mostly use and are very effective.