Stand Up and Be Noticed

Hi, my name is Kendra and I'm addicted to blending fragrances. Yep, it's a pretty bad addiction but I wouldn't be caught dead going to rehab for this one. It all started last year when I was searching some of my favorite sites for fragrance oils. Many of them were Bath and Body Works or Victoria Secret types of fragrances. Most famous fragrance designers don't want their name referred to in order to describe the scent. For instance if I used Aquolina Pink Sugar as a scent for my soap I can't call it that or say I used their "type". It was then that I said to myself, forget those big designers. I don't need their name or notoriety to sell a product often times superior to major brands anyway.

I started blending fragrances together to see what worked. Many times a soaper will blend scents to get rid of small amounts of fragrance or essential oils that aren't enough to scent products on their own. However, I believe it's time for handmade soap makers to look into making an entire line of custom blended scents all their own.

I thought about why those designer fragrances catch on so well aside from name recognition. I came to the conclusion that it was because they were coming up with unique scent combos that other designers didn't have, and that everyone else wants to copy. How do they come up with those admittedly wonderful smells? Well, aside from the truly unique scents that have no natural referrence such as Paris Hilton or Dolce & Gabbana Blue, these companies are finding different scents that go well together. Maybe two or three and sometimes even up to five or six different fragrances are used to achieve a single unique smell.

How can a small time soapcrafter achieve these same results you ask? Well I can't gaurantee that anyones scent combos are going to be all this summers rage, but we can be unique. It calls for thinking outside the box on what smells go nice. It also calls for lots and lots of experimentation. Instead of pairing together cucumber and melon, or apricot freesia, why not Lilac and Lime or something equally as fabulous?! There are so many fragrances out there to choose from and to blend that we don't need to wait for Philosophy or Perry Ellis to tell us which scents we should aspire to.

I also believe the exclusivity of the scent you create will make your product stand out more. Isn't that what people also pay the big bucks for, exclusive items? When they believe that they cannot purchase from anywhere else what they purchase from you, they will return to you again and again especially if your products are exquisite, like mine. My very first foray into making a custom scent was my Cedar Falls soap. I blended some essential and fragrance oils that came out beautifully and I advertise it as unique and exclusive to my shop.

Here's how to make your own custom scented line of products:

1) Pick some scents that you think will go good together and try blending them. Be sure to actually blend them in a small plastic or glass container to get the true sense of what they smell like together.

2) Allow them to sit at least a day so the fragrances can fully mingle. Sometimes they change on you!

3) If all goes well give the fragrance a snazzy name. Remember, don't be boring think outside the box!

4) Put the smell into your soaps and toiletries and voila, you have a custom scent that you made and you can feel free to advertize it like that.

No more worrying about if you can use the name of some designer. You can use your own name and in the end for us business owners our name is the most important one to put into the ears of your customers anyway!