Perfume Potion # 1 “Citrus Musk”

I am dedicating this perfume to my “Cookie Monster”. My clumsy first attempt to make a perfume for him was citrus musk. Back then I haphazardly mix a bunch of essential oil and some fragrance oil together, obviously it didn’t turn out good enough.

As I am quite the hoarder and did not want to waste the precious oils so I just let it sit around for a bit. The problem with this potion is that there is a huge distinction between the top and base note. Looking back I realize there was no middle note and the base note was just the fragrance musk. It needs a good dry down and middle note to round it up. Its like you can see the head and leg but not the body. 

“Cookie Monster” likes to nose around the bottles of failed experiments. He like the potion. Not being a “nose” he didn’t understand the concept of a good perfume from a lousy one. He just know what he likes and dislike. I believe the reason he enjoys it is because of the natural essential oil of grapefruit and bergamot, which uplift him every time he sprays it. That I find is the true beauty of natural perfume. It uplifts ones mood, as no other commercial synthetic perfume out there will. 

Anyway, he was reminding me a few days back to make him more of the “good stuff” but alas with no good bookkeeping I couldn’t find the recipe again. SO I guess I will have to do a tabula rasa.

A fresh start is good except that I am rather impatient and inexperience, not forgetting I have not have the foundation of knowing my materials yet. Some of the materials are so expensive to test it out with.

I just try to recreate from scratch. But this time round, I think I will include ylang ylang to add body to the perfume so that there is no gap between the top and base note. I find that ylang ylang is an expansive note and it fills out the gaps pretty nicely. The only problem is that it can be too expansive if too much is added. It needs a delicate touch. I would also like to make it slightly spicier with an addition of black pepper to the top note. As of now it is stewing in a dark corner of the room waiting to be evaluate in about 1 month time.

I intend to add in more citrus notes to extend the life of the top notes longer. Maybe a little bit of glycerin should do the trick to hold it down. The synthetic musk is sorta good as a fixative to add longevity to the perfume on the skin. But the end result will be different from the first one as in, the current perfume volume will smell like a big fat ball unlike it’s hourglass predecessor.

Of course this is not the end of the Citrus Musk Journey, as I am still unhappy with it but it will satisfy my “cookie monster” for a while.

Till then signing off,

Sandi

Give me some Lippie Love

I have never thought I would come to love lip balm so much till my lips started cracking in humid Singapore. To me healthy lips are important as they are used for smooching and also for vanity sake.

There are a few factors to painful crack lips and mine is due to dry air conditioning in the office. I found a few interesting ways to relive painful lip cracks by applying various items like lipgloss or glossy lipstick, aloe vera gel, cucumber slice and Vit E other than lip balm. You can get more information on the link below:

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Painful-Cracked-Lips

On the other hand, I have been experimenting with my own version of Mango Lip Butter and it seems to be a success. I have made a few batches of it and have been busy passing it around to friends and family. Have not had a negative remark yet. All of them seem to think that these are better than the ones that are selling in the retail shops. I’ll take that as a compliment thank you. Although they could have said it out of obligations but I personally have been using them to my own satisfaction.

One of the ingredients that I included in my lip butter is the COCOA BUTTER.
It is an edible vegetable fat from cocoa beans, extracted from the cocoa beans during the process of making chocolate and cocoa powder. The best part about using Cocoa butter in the recipe is that it has a mild chocolate flavor and aroma. According to reports, cocoa butter is one of the most stable fats known, containing natural antioxidants that prevent rancidity and give it a storage life of 2 to 5 years. It is used for its smooth texture in foods (including chocolate) and in cosmetics and soaps.

I have also add glycerin, beewax, mango flavor oil, jojoba oil and bee propolis extract. But basic lip balm would only require a bit of wax and oil to prevent moisture from evaporating from your lips.

Ok so a little bit of economics 101, part of the reason people turn to DIY homemade recipe is to save cost. The project may seem cheaper in bulk but trust me a stick of lip balm is gonna last you a long time unless you are using it every so often. So to me homemade lip balms may not be so economical unless you are making a lot of it and giving it away or sharing the cost with someone else for the lip balm. Its a sweet let's make something together with girlfriends. I have post the basic Lip Balm Recipe below for Mango Lip Butter. Have fun with it.

Mango Lip Butter (Make 1 Tube = 6ml)


· 40 small pellets of beewax (about 1 round tsp)

· 13g of coco butter

· 15dp(small dropper) mango flavor oil*

· 1ml of jojoba oil

· 1dp of hyalauronic acid*

· 5dp of bee propolis*

*optional


Melt them down and pour them into the tube. Wahla thats it.

Signing Off,
Sandi