REAL EXPERIENCE · NATURAL PERFUME MAKING

WHAT DOES SOMETHING
YOURS SMELL LIKE?

Lidija · Tried natural perfume making for the first time

I came to make a perfume.
I ended up discovering a scent I wouldn’t normally choose.

THE FIRST TIME

I tried natural perfume making for the first time at a Biljarica workshop.

That matters only as the context for this experience. Perfume making is not tied to one place, one method or one workshop. This is simply where I happened to try it for the first time.

I didn’t arrive with a clear idea of what my perfume was supposed to smell like. I knew the kinds of scents I usually liked, but that turned out to be very different from choosing individual notes and trying to combine them into something that works together.

Participants at a natural perfume-making workshop with fragrance essences on the table — The workshop where I tried natural perfume making for the first time.

THERE ARE MORE SCENTS THAN YOU THINK

There are bottles in front of you. A lot of bottles.

You smell one, then another, then another. Some feel right immediately. Some are an immediate no. And some surprise you because you would never have chosen them based on the name alone.

At some point you stop asking whether you like a scent on its own and start wondering what it might do when combined with something else.

That was probably the most interesting part of the whole process for me. You are not choosing a finished perfume. You keep changing things, comparing them and trying to work out what is missing.

Bourbon geranium card during a natural perfume-making workshop — One of the details that stayed with me — bourbon geranium.

Choosing fragrance essences while making a natural perfume — Choosing, comparing and going back to scents again.

“YOU NEED A LITTLE TENDERNESS.”

Somewhere in the middle of the process, the perfume started becoming softer and more delicate than I had expected.

I smelled it and told Maja that I really liked it, even though it was not the kind of scent I would normally choose for myself.

That was when she said:

“You need a little tenderness.”

And that sentence stayed with me.

Not as a comment about something technically missing from the perfume, but more as a small psychological observation — that sometimes we are drawn to something different from what we usually reach for because it is exactly what feels right at that moment.

Maybe that was why I found the scent so interesting.

I didn’t make the perfume I thought I was going to make. I made something softer.

And I liked it.

AND THEN YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT IS YOURS

By the end, you are no longer thinking only about individual fragrance notes.

You have a small perfume that did not exist a few hours earlier. Something you did not choose from a shelf, but built yourself, drop by drop.

And maybe that is why you experience the final scent differently. You know what went into it. You know which scents you rejected. You know where you changed your mind.

Finished natural perfume held in a hand after the workshop — My finished perfume after my first try.

This is my personal experience of making a natural perfume at a Biljarica workshop. Workshops, materials and methods may differ depending on where you try the activity.

WHAT I’D TELL SOMEONE THINKING ABOUT TRYING IT

DON’T THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT WHAT YOU “LIKE.”

Of course you can start with scents you already know. But leave some room to be surprised.

A scent that does not seem particularly interesting on its own might be exactly what your blend needs.

Smell it.
Try it.
Change your mind.

MY VERDICT

❤️

WORTH TRYING.