Every essential oil has a note. This means a few different things when it comes to aromatherapy and the proper use of essential oils. There are three different types of notes. Top, Middle/Heart, and Base. What does any of this mean?
In order to make the most effective blend you need to have at least one of each in the blend. The reason being they all support each other.
Top note Essential Oils are typically the least expensive oils because they are typically the easiest to distill from the plant. They are the essential oils that evaporate the quickest as well. However they are also the essential oil that you will smell first in the blend. Some common Top note essential oils include all the mints, and the citrus essential oils. Top notes usually take from 1-2 hours to diffuse. They are also the essential oils that are the instant reaction oils. That meaning you can notice an instant reaction when you use them.
Middle/Heart note Essential oils are commonly the oils that are going to add warmth and body to a blend. They are also going to influence the overall tone of the scent of the blend. Middle note essential oils are typically used for skin care, pain management, stress, and infection. They evaporate within 2-4 hours.
Base note Essential oils are the stubborn ones. Usually they are the oils that take a lifetime to get out of the bottle. haha. Seriously though, there are a lot of base note essential oils that are resins and they do take a long time to come out because of how thick they are. Base notes essential oils are commonly referred to as fixative oils. That means they slow down the rate of evaporation in a blend. They can have a wide range of evaporation time because of the consistency of each oil. They can take from 4-24 hours depending on what part of the plant they are distilled from.
So how do you apply this? When creating a blend you want to make sure that the blend has each of the three, a top, middle, and base not. You also want to make sure that you combine them in reverse order (ie base note essential oil, middle note essential oil, top note essential oil). You also want to make sure you have more top than base note and more middle than base because those are the ones that you need to have more to diffuse longer.
I hope this can help you better blend and understand your oils. I will be teaching a special blending class in January. Look for the announcements and some changes coming to the website.
-Katelyn Shaw
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