5 Amyris Perfume Oil Recipes for Slow Evenings
A perfume oil for the evening wants a wood with a slow, low voice, and amyris has one. It is creamy, woody and balsamic, and it behaves like a base note, which means it is still there when brighter oils have gone. These five formulas put amyris in the lead, each one worked out in drops for a one ounce bottle, so you can mix a small batch and see which suits your evenings.
Amyris Essential Oil
Our own Amyris Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
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Shop Now →Start with the ceiling: 12 drops per ounce
Our guidance for skin is 0.5% to 2% in a carrier oil with a patch test first. The Tisserand Institute lists 1 to 3% for body oils and lotions, 0.5 to 1.2% for the face and other sensitive areas, and 0.2 to 1% for skin that reacts easily. Every blend below totals 12 drops in one ounce (29.57 ml) of carrier.
Drops are not a fixed unit, so here is the arithmetic. At a common 20 drops per ml, 12 drops is 0.6 ml, about 2.0%. The Tisserand Institute's drop-size review found 20 to 40 drops per ml across studies, and its chart assumes 30, where the same 12 drops is about 1.3%. So the formulas land between roughly 1.3% and 2%. For the face or sensitive skin, halve every count to 6 drops total, which is about 0.7% to 1%.
The five formulas
Drops per ounce of carrier, 12 in total.
| Blend | Amyris | Others | Aroma idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry Dusk | 6 | Vetiver 3, black pepper 3 | Dry, earthy, peppery wood |
| Cardamom Milk | 6 | Cardamom 4, ginger 2 | Cool spice over creamy wood |
| Earth and Wood | 4 | Patchouli 4, vetiver 2, black pepper 2 | Mossy, deep, slow to fade |
| Low Light | 3 | Cardamom 4, ginger 3, black pepper 2 | Spice up front, wood behind |
| Deep Base | 7 | Patchouli 3, ginger 2 | Warm, dark, little top |
Dry Dusk
Vetiver and amyris are both base notes, so this one is all depth. Our amyris and vetiver comparison shows where they overlap. Black pepper is a head and heart note, and it gives the first few minutes an edge so the oil does not open as a flat wood. Top notes last 15 to 30 minutes on skin and base notes more than four hours, according to a perfume engineering review, so most of what you smell later is the vetiver and amyris half.
Cardamom Milk
The name is the idea: cool cardamom against a creamy wood, borrowing our own word for amyris. It is the lightest of the amyris-heavy blends, and two drops of ginger add a zesty edge without piling more spice on the cardamom.
Earth and Wood
Patchouli is a base note too, and here it matches amyris drop for drop. With two heavy oils, the vetiver and pepper keep the whole thing from smelling like a single block. It is the darkest of the five, so try half a batch first.
Low Light
This one reverses the others: only three drops of amyris under nine drops of spice. It is a neat way to learn how a base note holds up brighter ones, because the spices should fade first and your nose will tell you how much the amyris slows that. Make it next to Cardamom Milk and compare them on blotters at 30 minutes, two hours and four hours.
Deep Base
The most amyris, seven of twelve drops, with patchouli and a little ginger. With almost no top note it smells much the same at minute one and hour four. It also projects the least, so pick something else if you want to be noticed across a room.
Making a batch
Use a carrier oil with no water in it, so no preservative is needed. Jojoba and fractionated coconut oil are common choices, and you will find them at a carrier-oil seller, since we sell only the amyris. Add the essential oils to a clean one ounce amber bottle, fill with carrier, cap, tilt to mix, label with the formula and the date, and give it a day before you judge it. For smaller bottles, our roll-on perfume math helps, and the solid perfume formula covers the balm version. A room version of these moods lives in our winter diffuser blends.
Wearing and judging them
Once a blend has rested, put a little on the inside of one wrist and leave it alone. Smell it at the start, again after half an hour, and again once the day has moved on. The first minutes are mostly the spices and pepper, and later you will notice the wood coming forward. Keep a few lines in a notebook, because after two or three blends your own words will tell you more than our table does.
If you fall for one of the five, change one thing at a time. Move a drop from one oil to another, remake it, and compare the two versions on separate strips. Small shifts are the fun part of blending, and the notes you keep become your own recipe book.
Do a patch test on the inner forearm before you wear any of them. The Tisserand Institute notes that a patch test is not completely reliable, so a clear patch is a good first check and not a guarantee, and our patch test guide explains why. Every oil in a blend counts toward your total, so look up each oil's IFRA standard before you share a blend or sell one. If you have eczema, a fragrance allergy or are pregnant, ask a dermatologist, allergist or midwife first. Keep the bottles away from children, pets and eyes, and do not take any of it internally.
If you want a safe first draft, begin with Dry Dusk. If you are curious how much work three drops of amyris can do, make Low Light. If you would like a lot report with GC-MS, ask us in writing through the contact page before you order.
Amyris Essential Oil
Amyris Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
From $23.99
Shop Now →Sources & Further Reading
- Tisserand Institute. Essential oil dilution. tisserandinstitute.org
- Tisserand H. How big is a drop? tisserandinstitute.org
- Tisserand Institute. Irritation and allergic reactions. tisserandinstitute.org
- Rodrigues AE, Nogueira I, Faria RPV, 2021. Perfume and Flavor Engineering. Molecules 26(11):3095. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
