Discover a perfume-making experience that lets you design your own fragrance – a creative and lasting souvenir of your visit.
“Spiced Rose” is the name of my new signature scent. I made and named it myself under the guidance of Wellington Apothecary’s essential oil expert Jemma Scott.
Mandarin, yuzu, lavender, rose, Buddha wood and black pepper, mixed with a base of golden jojoba. And because Wellington Apothecary only works with therapeutic grade essential oils, my perfume has aromatherapeutic properties and invokes feelings of being grounded, calm and balanced.
This was what I was seeking and my nose ended up choosing, which is part of the magic of Wellington Apothecary’s in-house scent sessions. Here you get to play with different scents and take away a perfect travel sized 10ml roll-on perfume.
In addition to rolling it on your pulse points it’s also quite nice as a hair conditioner according to Jemma. “It’s a really good way to wear a natural scent,” she explains, “because it lasts quite well.”
To begin, she places three groups of essential oils front of me, each in families of top, mid or base notes (also known as head, heart and base notes).
Wellington Apothecary’s masterful perfume blender Jemma Scott.
“That refers to the weight of the molecules in each essential oil and how quickly or slowly they evaporate,” explains Jemma. “We blend them together to create a layered scent that evolves over time. Your top notes are your lightest essential oils. They give the first impression of your scent. They’ll evaporate within about 15 minutes to half an hour of applying your perfume. They tend to be quite fresh and sharp and then they mellow out a bit as the perfume wears. Your mid notes are the heart of your fragrance, the foundation, they give the body and complexity to your scent.
“They tend to be more herbaceous or green or floral, so things like cypress, kānuka. Mid notes evaporate within about half an hour to two hours. And then your base notes are your heaviest essential oils. They tend to be quite thick, some are even solid at room temperature, and they evaporate much more slowly, within two to six hours. They tend to be more your resins and woods and roots, those earthier scents. And they help to fix your perfume and make the overall effect last longer.”
Being therapeutic grade, each has aromatherapeutic properties. “So, if you want to bring in a little bit of an aromatherapy effect, something calming or energising, then we can work with that as well,” she says.
Before we begin Jemma gets me to set my intention. I want something grounding and balancing.
She also asks what sort of scents I enjoy. Floral or fresh? Is there anything I really love like vanilla or sandalwood?
As we go through the oils, I learn that mandarin is a great calming oil. It’s not quite as sweet as orange which is a happy essential oil that is energising and rejuvenating.
Yuzu is also a nice citrus – a little bit more bitter, grown up, and elegant. It pairs nicely with mandarin.
Spearmint has quite a balancing effect in aromatherapy. “We actually use it a lot for clarity and cognitive function, but it’s quite relaxing at the same time,” says Jemma.
She then brings out rose, which is very precious essential oil. “As you’ll know a rose petal releases its fragrance very easily, but it also doesn’t actually produce a lot of essential oil compared to lavender,” says Jemma. “It must be grown, harvested, and distilled very, very carefully to preserve the scent. And it’s a very expensive process. It takes about 600 roses to make one mil of essential oil, which is 20 drops.”
She hands to me a small bottle of Rose Damascena which alone costs $1,500 and I’m careful not to drop or spill it.
Rose Damascenaworks quite hard in a scent. It has layers of complexity. “Rose is the great comforter,” says Jemma. “It’s a mood enhancer, mildly antidepressant and good for emotional distress.”
Neroli, however, is Jemma’s personal favourite. “This is like sunshine, happiness in a bottle to my nose,” she says
I ask her if she just comes to work every day and sniffs bottles. Yep, pretty much. This is the fun part of the job including teaching people like me about fragrance blending.
We move onto black pepper, which Jemma really likes for the sweet florals and thinks might appeal to my nose because it gives a bit of earthiness and contrast. And she’s right.
I also choose Buddha wood which is grounding. And lavender which goes nicely together with rose, though according to Jemma lavender goes with absolutely everything.
Once I’ve chosen all the scents, which during our process Jemma has dipped with paper scent strips, she clips them together, fanned out and waves them past her nose.
A fragrance deck helps with creating your own special blend. Photography Celeste Fontein
Wafting the fragrance deck in this way provides a sense of how the scents work together. If one is more dominant, you can bend an individual scent away from the others and sniff again. Perhaps you only need one drop of that oil, not two. You can also swap out the scent strips and try different combinations.
“We’re aiming for about 15 drops in total, but first we want to get the balance right and then multiply it to get the strength,” explains Jemma.
It turns out that my perfume, “Spiced Rose”, balances out with 2 drops of everything. After which we add 10ml of organic jojoba oil and give it a 60 second stir. Jojoba is the perfect carrier oil because it’s stable, has a two-year shelf life and is odourless.
You can find Wellington Apothecary at 110 Cuba St, Wellington. Photography Wellington NZ, Phoebie MacKenzie.
Wellington Apothecary offers different bespoke blending sessions from perfume to teas and has just started doing candle workshops, too.
