Are Natural Perfumes The Same As Wearing Essential Oils?
March 19th, 2021

Are Natural Perfumes The Same As Wearing Essential Oils?

In a word, no. They are not. 

Our clean perfumes are fine fragrances. Some do contain essential oils but they also contain botanical extracts, tinctures, resins, floral extracts, natural isolates and nature identicals which means they are much more complex than a few essential oils thrown together. 

When they are blended together and mixed with alcohol, they fuse together and create the magic known as perfume. 

The bottom line is that perfume is a science and an artform. Yes, you probably can make some lovely smells by mixing a few essential oils together but there won't be top, middle and bottom notes, and it won't last as long as a clean, natural perfume does. 

Essential oils quickly begin to break down once in contact with your skin if they are on their own. They quickly lose that initial lovely scent and you're left with rather a flat scent. But when combined with other components in a whole perfume, the essential oil is just one part of an artistic puzzle which keeps the good parts of the oil alive for much longer. The sugar-cane derived alcohol it sits in also acts as a preservative to help prolong the beautiful scent. 

Is it safe to wear essential oils on skin? 

Not exactly. Essential oils are potent and it's not like just squeezing a drop of lemon on your wrist. It takes a lot more than one leaf or petal to make essential oils. They are very concentrated and as soon as it hits your skin it begins to communicate with your body. This can be done the right way - eg by qualified aromatherapist - or the wrong way and we can overdose. To be safe, dilute them at 20% in a carrier oil like jojoba. 

It's also why we should never, ever ingest essential oils. I've seen some recipes that contain lemon or peppermint oil for example and it and can be dangerous because the amount you're ingesting is incredibly difficult to control. You just don't want to be messing around with that. 

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