twenty ninth Aug 2025
Studying Time: 4 minutes
Boutique perfumes are all the fashion – have a look at the success of social media manufacturers like Ffern and The Saltworks Firm.
However you don’t should be on the entrance of OK! Journal or an enormous firm to start out promoting selfmade fragrance. You would make and promote your personal fragrance and perfume-based merchandise for surprisingly little value. It’s not that onerous both and you may nearly at all times discover what you want at a well being meals retailer.
Find out how to make your personal fragrance
Earlier than you may start promoting selfmade fragrance, you have to perceive make a viable product. One of the simplest ways to do that is to take a position a bit money and time (however not a lot!) – Wowcher has some nice fragrance making workshops which is able to educate you the fundamentals for underneath £30.
First, resolve how sturdy you need your perfume. Perfumes are the strongest, containing 15-30 per cent important oils diluted in a base of alcohol, with a small share of distilled water. Much less potent waters comprise 5-10 per cent important oils whereas colognes and physique splashes might have 1-2 per cent.
What you’ll want:
- Your favorite pure important oils (resembling rose, lavender or sandalwood)
- Alcohol for cleansing
- Fixatives
- Eye-droppers
- Small vials
- Sterilised small bottles or jars
One of the best alcohols are the highest-proof ones, as they comprise the best focus of ethyl alcohol: use 95 per cent grain alcohol (190 proof) or vodka (the very best proof accessible).
Fixatives lengthen a perfume. They’re components added to a composition to lend their total fee of evaporation. Generally used fixatives are sandalwood, benzoin, myrrh, vanilla and balsam of Peru. Different fixatives, significantly helpful for oil and tub blends, lotions and lotions, are tincture of benzoin, grape seed oil, castor oil, and liquid from vitamin E gel capsules.
It is best to use glass containers (fairly than plastic) for getting ready and storing perfumes. Be sure to file, date and identify every mix and be ready to attend for days or perhaps weeks after you have made your fragrance as ageing is critical to easy out and mellow the raw-ingredient odor – permit your mix to age in a cool, dry, darkish space.
After including every new important oil, make sure you odor the end result to get an thought of how every added ingredient adjustments the formulation and the way you would possibly like to switch it sooner or later. Clear the eye-dropper in alcohol or vodka between every addition of a brand new important oil.
‘You are able to do what you need, in fact, however once I’m working with new oils or new mixtures, I normally begin with equal quantities – for instance, two drops of ginger, two drops of jasmine, and two drops of sandalwood,’ says American Sherill Pociecha, who mixes her personal fragrance.
In case you have a background in chemistry and like technical books, The Chemistry of Fragrances by D. H. Pybus and C. S. Promote is a helpful sourcebook for would-be perfume-makers.
However the precise perfume is only a very small a part of the full fragrance bundle, as all the massive perfume-makers know. You will have good packaging – enticing bottles, fairly printed labels and extras resembling ribbons, dried flowers or well-designed wrapping and packing containers. In case you are inventive, or somebody that’s who will aid you, this may be the actually enjoyable half about it.
It’s vital to work out your advertising and marketing idea earlier than you make your last number of a perfume. You need the idea – the picture of the perfume – to work in tandem with the scent. Don’t go overboard on frills. Attempt to discover a theme and categorical it in a easy but artistic approach – it’s simpler and normally less expensive, however remains to be more likely to promote in addition to extra fussy issues.
If you happen to study to make cleaning soap, candles and lotions (none of them too troublesome), you may provide a variety of merchandise in a single explicit scent. You may then market these as reward packing containers.
How a lot are you able to make by promoting selfmade fragrance?


The mark-up on perfumes may be very excessive, so in case you are profitable you may earn hundreds a month, however it is going to take some time to construct the enterprise as much as this type of stage. Some ideas that can assist you begin are:
- Start with a modest vary.
- Maintain your overheads low – make the stuff in your kitchen or your backyard shed you probably have one.
- Keep in mind The Physique Store Anita Roddick used pattern bottles to promote her lotions and potions initially. Search for low-cost however efficient bottles and containers.
- Presentation is all the pieces. Once more, you don’t should spend massive cash however you do should be artistic. Use ribbons, even collage utilizing torn-out footage from magazines, pressed flowers and buttons. Every kind of issues could make the packages look enticing.
- Keep in mind to consider the price of promoting, journey and advertising and marketing in addition to the price of net design and internet hosting, if you happen to promote that approach, plus the price of exhibiting at gala’s or markets.
- Keep in mind that it may take months earlier than you promote something. Maintain your personal outgoings low for so long as doable.
Begin promoting selfmade fragrance
Fortunately, promoting selfmade fragrance comes with quite a lot of strategies. You will have to market your product to reward retailers – within the excessive avenue and on-line – and unbiased chemist’s retailers and toiletry shops. You would additionally promote at craft gala’s, native markets and reward gala’s resembling High Drawer, which takes place yearly at Olympia London. Organising your personal web site and promoting your merchandise direct to the general public can be a good suggestion. Or, even simpler, arrange your personal perfume-selling market on eBay.
