Different oils when mixed together can give you a different scent... so mixing lavender for instance, which is good for your skin, can be adapted to suit your mood or the season by blending. A few rules of thumb to mix a top, middle and base note (lavender is right in the middle or can also act as your base note).
Top notes are the ones that hit your nose first when you open the bottle. they don't tend to hang around for long - With aromatherapy oils, they will be all the citrus oils such as lime, tangerine, lemon etc, and there are some like peppermint that are both top and middle notes. Generally speaking these oils are refreshing and revitalizing and lighten whatever else you have put them with, but they do evaporate off quite quickly.
The middle notes are the ones that I call the 'workers'. From an aromatherapy point of view, they get into the systems of the body and do their bit - they stick around for longer and have many varied scents.... here's a small list of obvious middle notes with just some of their qualities..
Juniper - Quite ruthless, flushes the kidneys, detox.
Geranium - good for flushing system, emotional and physical balance.
Fennel - Excellent digestive tonic in small doses.Again can be quite ruthless.
Lavender - this can be a middle or a base note. Good for relaxation, headaches,has a cooling effect.
Black pepper - good for muscles and joints. warming.
These all have quite distinctive aromas and you really need to just try them.
The base notes are the ones that stay around the longest. They are the ones you can still smell on the skin after the others have gone. These are my favourites ! They work on the emotional and spiritual self more than any of the other oils. The list includes your deep woody oils and some of my favourites are :
Jasmine - warm and assertive ( masculine in the yin/yang sense)
Rose - pure heaven (sorry that's a a personal opinion - not very scientific) brings out the softer more feminine side of things. ( Good for men too !)
Benzoin - quite a drowsy - wrap-you-up-in-cottonwool and smelling a bit like chocolate effect.
Sandalwood - another quite masculine oil and very 'grounding'. Good for bringing down to earth but not for depressives.
Patchouli - relaxing and deep
The following are possibly a mixture of base and middle notes.
Ylang Ylang - very floral, relaxes and gets rid of frustration and anger.
Frankincense - gorgeous for helping calm breathing and leads to giggling.
Lavender - relaxing, cooling and soothing.
I will add vanilla to the list as I have recently started using this along with many different combinations of oils. It makes my clients give great sighs of satisfaction when they smell it ! Another heavenly one.
I really think you have to find a shop or a therapist that will let you smell the oils in the bottle. Any good shop should let you do this before you buy anyway.
You may want to add patchouli, sandalwood, and jasmine to your cedar. But you also may find that an unlikely oils appeals to you and works really well - I would give frankincense a try, and maybe mandarin for your top note.
Other odd combinations that work really well are black pepper with rose, fennel and geranium with jasmine....
Here are one or two suggestions that spring to mind for your formula -
Cedar, Ylang Ylang ,Frankincense ,Mandarin.
Cedar ,Patchouli ,Juniper , Lemon or Grapefruit.
Cedar, Jasmine or Rose ,Sandalwood, Geranium ,Lime
Go by your instinct and enjoy the process.
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