Working with Essential oils

I am often asked how do I work with Essential oils and how do I prepare my combinations. It's a long learning curve for me, I made so many mistakes and wasted ingredients. To start with I took finally a practical advise and started working only with 10% dilutions of essential oils in carrier oils. Working with pure and full strength oils is a recipe for disaster. It is not a joke at all and I would warn everybody to be very careful how and where they handle full strength Essential oils. On top of that, the full potent oils are very harsh and overwhelming, it takes longer for the right notes to develop and for some of the very powerful ones you only need such a small amount, it's sometimes virtually impossible to measure.
So start with I prepare 10% dilution in Jojoba oil, although with the sky high pricing of it, it s more cost effective to use Sunflower oil-please don't underestimate the good old Sunflower oil ( I will be talking about it in one of my next posts, lots to be said about it). So if you don't have a good scale, use a dropper. So to every 100 ml Sunflower/Jojoba oil add 10 ml pure essential oil of choice, or on every 10 drops carrier oil , add a drop Essential oil. Shake well and leave for a day before starting to work with it, it will give it a chance to develop the full scent and to settle.
The combinations are limitless, I would advise to start with combining 2-3 essential oils. Measurement is also a headache, if you only need small amount its maybe better to use droppers ( glass droppers are the best) If you want larger quantity, its best to use highly sensitive scales, the ones that weight 1/100 of a gram. Can be a substantial investment, but its worth it if thats what you want to do. Always leave the newly combined scents for a week to settle and develop, meanwhile keep checking it write down what you feel when you smell the new combination. It's amazing how the combination change over time. Don't forget to write down the ingredients, the quantity of each one and the date.
Later I'll be talking about the different notes and the basic rules of mixing Essential oils.