perfumery.jpgYes, I’ve been spending lots of money that I shouldn’t on kits of stuff to do with the girls. Yeah, I could play a board game with them, or play with their dolls (they’d love that) – but I personally hate playing. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Nothing makes me more anxious and unhappy as having to play little kids’ games. I’m waiting for them to be a little bit older so that we can play cards or more adult games, because for the time being, it’s just too painful.
Anyway, I have discovered that I do like doing “cosmetic” stuff with them. I’ve enjoyed making the bath salts from the Scientific Explorer’s Spa Science Chemistry Kit, making soaps from a couple of kits I bought, and doing experiments from another. In a way, it’s very similar to cooking, you put substances together and create something new that goes beyond the sum of its parts. And, of course, I love to cook.
The Scientific Explorer’s Perfumery kit seemed like the next logical thing to get. I found it on DeepDiscount.com for $15.50 (about $4.50 less than in most places, unfortunately it’s no longer available on that site), so I went for it. It arrived yesterday and I tried it this morning. Here is what I think of it:
The kit is very simple. It contains 5 small bottles of fragrances: apple, heliotrope,jasmine,lily of the valley and peppermint. Each fragrance contains sunflower oil with “perfume”, whatever that be. There are also 5 tiny plastic vials, where you can mix your fragrances, and 5 pipettes. And the instructions, of course. That’s it – for $15-20 bucks. As with Spa Science I feel that the most valuable part of the kit are the instructions. Unfortunately the instructions do not explain how to make the fragrances themselves. /What/, exactly, do I mix with sunflower oil to make fragrances myself? Essential oils? Actual perfume? Can I use those scents that came with my soap kits? (like this one). At least the instructions do tell you how to make essential oils from flowers: put the flowers in a jar, cover them with an odorless oil (sunflower, safflower, canola or corn all work), and let it stand for several weeks, adding more flowers when you can. You can do the same thing with herbs and spices. I think I’ll try that (though I’m sure my kids will be too impatient).
The whole point of the kit is to mix the different perfumes together to make your own scents. They give you two “recipes”, and then you are on your own. They do warn you against using too much peppermint. The only thing that I can surmise from the recipes, is that you put mostly one perfume, and then add small quantities of the other ones to change the smell. It’d be nice if there was more instruction as to how different smells interact with one another.
The other thing that is missing is information on what to do with the mixes once done. Do you apply them directly to your body? Do you first mix them with alcohol?
In any case, Mika and I had fun smelling and trying to identify the different scents. We weren’t very good at it (Camila, interestingly, was better) but it was fun. Camila mixed all the five scents randomly and made a mix that ended up being quite pleasant. I didn’t really enjoy the scent when smelling it directly from the vial, but once I mixed it with an equal quantity of vodka and applied it to our skin, it improved considerably. It also lasted for a couple of hours (which is longer than the cheap perfume I use, usually lasts). I’m pretty sure that Mika and I will enjoy doing it as well. I will also try using the scents we create in the soaps we make, hopefully they’ll work.
So in conclusion, once again I think the kit is too expensive for what it is, but as I wouldn’t have known where to start without it, I’m glad I bought it.