Making scents

Work in the garden has continued although, sadly, without me for the past week after I managed to aggravate an old shoulder injury. However frustrating this was, I had no option but to turn my attention to less physically demanding pursuits.

On my wish-list for some time has been to create my own reed diffuser room scents. A nice-smelling room is lovely but I often wonder what you are breathing in when you buy a bottle from a shop. I know there is a list of ingredients on the packet but most of what is listed is completely incomprehensible, to me at least.

Anyway, I did some research on what the most basic ingredients to go in a reed diffuser could be and decided to have a go at making some myself. All you need is a light-weight base oil, preferably unscented or at least pleasantly scented, some essential oils for the scent and some 90% alcohol to help the two mix.

I decided to use almond oil for the base. It's light (so should travel up the reeds easily) relatively unscented, and was half price in my local health food store. I also stocked up on essential oils in the same shop as they were also half price - an important consideration when you consider that you need quite a bit of scent for each diffuser.

As for the alcohol, some sources suggested using 'rubbing alcohol' but anything that resembled such a thing smelled very strongly medicinal and that wasn't quite the aroma I was after for the house - 'eau de locker room' anyone?! Other sources suggested using vodka but I'm yet to find 90% proof vodka that is affordable and won't make the house smell like a distillery - also not the scent I'm after. In the end I found a source of perfumer's alcohol which is 95% alcohol and completely unscented.

The next bit was exceptionally easy as I just mixed 230ml of almond oil with 20ml essential oil (I used 10ml grapefruit oil, about 7ml orange oil, and about 3ml of bergamot oil) and 2 tablespoons of the alcohol. After mixing well I poured it into two narrow-necked glass bottles (saved from shop bought reed diffusers) and popped in some fresh reeds.

The grapefruit oil was a very dark orange so that has made the mixture a strong golden yellow but that's in keeping with the colour scheme of the room that they are in so not an issue.

I'm rather chuffed with the results although yet to work out quite how effective they are going to be. They are in the kitchen and I went on to make three batches of curry paste and the kitchen definitely smelled more like the ingredients for curry than 'uplifting citrus'!