Aged around five years old, I had a bottle of rose perfume. I loved this perfume. I think I loved it not because it smelt of roses but because it came in a snowman-shaped bottle. I can still remember it now – the snow-white bobbly opaque glass bottle in the shape of a snowman, topped with a lavender top hat. When the perfume ran out, I was heartbroken.
So, what does a heartbroken five year old do when she’s run out of her favourite perfume? That’s right, she makes her own but, to be perfectly honest, it was so seriously minging, I doubt even my mum wore it to humour her little rapscallion daughter.
I was recently reminded of making my own perfume by a friend on Twitter who was reminiscing about how she, too, used to make her own rose perfume by squeezing rose petals into water and she, too, said how seriously minging it was (although she’s quite posh, so probably didn’t use the word ‘minging’). So I got to wondering if making your own rose perfume was a ‘thing’ and, if it was a ‘thing’, how to do it without making it minging. And, lo! The Guardian came to my rescue. You can read The Guardian’s instructions on how to make your own rose perfume, or you can read my summary of it below (please note I haven’t made this so it may well be as minging as the one I made forty years ago):
How to make your own rose perfume
What you need:
A bottle into which to pour the perfume (snowman-shaped or otherwise)
2 handfuls of rose petals
2 cups of water
How you do it:
- Pour two cups of water into a saucepan.
- Put a lid on the pan and bring the water to a boil.
- Remove from the heat and add the rose petals.
- Strain the mixture through a sieve, squeezing out the perfume.
- Fill the bottle with the perfume.
You could decorate the bottle with thread and beads and, if you’re giving it as a gift to someone, put a few bottles of different types of perfume in a box or basket such as the kind you can find from somewhere that sells florist craft supplies.
If you do make some perfume, please let me know how it turns out!
