The Crafty Lass does… Signature perfume!

I know you’d think that creating your own perfume is only an experience for the rich and famous, or the haute couture, or well trained perfumers – well this is not actually the case!
Yesterday, myself and my mother-in-law (it was a last Christmas gift from us to her!) attended The Perfume Studio experience at Salus Natural Therapy in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I was quite skeptical as to whether I would be able to create something that didn’t smell like a duty free perfume counter – basically just too much going on – however, you are taken through slowly step by step to understand the different ‘levels’ of smell, and you slowly pick and choose and adjust what you think would be in your perfect signature scent.

Starting with the ‘base notes’ (5 to choose from) it was very quickly obvious which ones you did and definitely did not like! Each scent was given to you on a little perfume ‘stick’ which you basically had to waft back and forth in front of your nose so you picked up everything it had to offer. You also get a little bag of coffee beans to sniff between perfume scents – which almost acts as a ‘nose reset’! It allows you to differentiate between them all. You then settled on one of these base notes (maximum two) as a starter of what you’d like to use. So far, so good.

However, it started to get all rather more complicated when you then began to add in the ‘middle notes’ (9 to choose from) as suddenly combining things together – some of the base notes you had discarded – when blended together with these new middle ones – actually ‘worked’. But slowly but surely, you started to eliminate/select what would be nice combined together.

Just when you think you’ve cracked it – you also had the ‘top notes’ to also select from (4 to choose from). You can add as little or as many of these smells together (average is about 5-7 in total) and you don’t HAVE to have top notes also – but, in the end I did to give it an overall balance – alongside 2 base notes, and three middle. A total of 6 combined together to make ‘Daffodil’. (Yes, you also get to name your new scent!) And, in case you are wondering – the name ‘Daffodil’ comes from my nickname from my lovely Mother In Law – she calls me Daffodil.

My new scent, is very fresh, quite floral but also quite ‘musky’ – there are roses in there, ‘fresh florals’, ‘ocean breeze’, ‘cucumber’… It is the sort of perfume I could wear everyday and not get bored!

We were in a small group, and Sara from Salus Natural Therapy was very patient, very thorough and giving us plenty of time to pick and choose/play around with the combinations. With 18 scents as a maximum that could have been combined (although I wouldn’t recommend – as then that really does smell like a Duty Free perfume counter!) – it was amazing to see just how different the end results from the other ladies were. Some were ‘spicy’, some ‘vanilla’, some ‘herbal’ and some ‘citrus’. All lovely, but all very distinctly personal.

We then got to select which perfume bottle you’d like to put your new magnificent creation to be in – with a choice of colours, some with ‘bling’ some without. I actually paid slightly extra to have mine in a beautiful, heavy and luxurious glass bottle.

The interesting thing with this – is according to the Fragantica website, my normal perfume of choice ‘Chanel Chance’ – which I do normally wear every day, and absolutely LOVE – was a completely different direction to what I had selected. In fact, it is predicted to be made with some of the base notes that I immediately did not want! However, that goes to show you just how complicated making a perfume can be – and that they must include various other levels, at varying quantities to just make it classically, distinctly ‘Chanel’.

We now get to wear our lovely new perfumes and of course await that magical moment of:

Friend/family/work colleague: “Oooh I love your perfume, what is it?”

Us: “Oh, this? This is MY own perfume, created just for me, by me!”

The other great thing is about this experience – is you can reorder your signature perfume whenever you like – they keep absolutely everything on record – so when you are down to the last drop, you call up – quote your name, and perfume name and et voila – they will post that out to you! And, in comparison to other perfumes out in the market – it is not at an unreasonable price. And, in reality – I would be happy to pay it, knowing it is still your own ‘designer’ fragrance.

I would highly recommend this experience to anyone who wears perfume, wants to learn about perfume or just fancies doing something that little bit different!

PS I did look a little bit odd later that day wandering around Tesco picking up a few bits for dinner and occasionally sniffing my wrists! But, I needed a hit – I just totally do love it!

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