Since the times before Christ, people have placed importance on the pleasant experience of wearing perfume. A perfume is created by mixing a solvent, a fixative and a fragrant compound. The most common solvent used is alcohol. However, alcohol can affect the liver, cause sensitizing skin reactions including white spots when exposed to the sun. Some people can not use alcohol in perfumes for religious reasons.

Decide if you are going to prepare a liquid or solid perfume. For liquid perfume you can use coconut or jojoba oil if you have dry skin or food grade dipropolene glycol if you have normal or oily skin. For solid perfume you would use beeswax instead.

Add 3 tablespoons of the solvent to the glass or ceramic pot.

Now it's time to add what are called the notes. There are three types of notes and a good perfume has to have all of them. These notes can be either essential, synthetic or fragrance oils. Use essential oils for their beneficial properties. Top or head notes are what you first smell when you notice a fragrance. It evaporates sooner than the others. You can use mandarin, grapefruit, lemon, bergamot or orange. Middle or heart notes are what you notice when the head note starts to dissipate. You can use palmarosa, lavender, tuberose, geranium, ylang ylang, rose or jasmine. Finally, base notes are the core of the perfume. These are more volatile oils that make the fragrance linger. You can use sandalwood, patchouli, benzoin or vanilla.

Add the essential oils to the solvent in the mixing pot using the dropper. You can add the oils according to your preference, but if you are not sure you can add 10 drops of the top and base notes and 5 drops of the heart notes. You can also use more than one essential oil for each note. In that case, decrease the number of drops.

Shake well in the case of a liquid perfume. In case you are making solid perfume, microwave until the mixture is dissolved.

Pour the mixture into a dark bottle with a cap if you prepared a liquid perfume or the metal or plastic tin for a solid one.

Cover and let it cool unopened for 12 hours.