Layering is the reason a lot of people move to oils in the first place. Because there is no alcohol firing off the skin, two oils applied together actually sit alongside each other instead of fighting. You end up wearing something nobody else has.
It is also very easy to get wrong. Here is how to do it without smelling like a candle shop.
Start with two, not three
Two oils is a blend. Three is a gamble. Almost every combination worth wearing is built from one scent giving the base and one giving the character on top of it.
Build from the bottom up
Apply the heavier oil first, let it settle for a minute, then put the lighter one over it. Heavy means the woody, resinous, ambery, musky end of things. Light means citrus, florals and anything fresh. Doing it the other way round tends to bury the delicate one completely.
Combinations that reliably work
- Musk and vanilla. The safest pairing there is. Musk gives you a skin like warmth, vanilla rounds off the edges. A good first attempt if you are nervous about layering.
- Rose and oud. The classic, and traditional for good reason. Rose stops oud turning severe, oud stops rose turning soapy.
- Vanilla and citrus. Sweet with a bite in the opening. Works in warm weather where a straight vanilla would sit too heavily.
- Amber and floral. Amber gives a floral oil weight underneath and makes it last considerably longer.
- Woody and fruity. Sandalwood or patchouli beneath something like cherry or berry. Stops the fruit reading as juvenile.
Combinations to be careful with
Two heavy oils together, oud with tobacco for instance, will usually be too much for anything other than a cold evening out. Two big white florals, tuberose with gardenia say, tend to cancel each other out rather than combine. And a sharp citrus over a very deep base often just smells like the base wearing a strange hat.
Test on card before you commit
Put a drop of each on a strip of card, hold them together and smell across both at once. It is not identical to skin but it will tell you quickly whether something is a bad idea. If it passes, wear the two separately on either arm for an hour before putting them on the same wrist.
Mind the ratio
Layering is not one dab each. Usually you want more of the base and only a touch of the accent, roughly two to one. If one scent is doing all the talking after ten minutes, use less of that one next time rather than more of the other.
Keep a note
Write down what you used and in what order. You will forget, and good combinations are annoyingly hard to reconstruct from memory a fortnight later.
We have grouped the oils that combine most easily into the layering collection. If you want an obvious place to begin, take a musk as your base and put a rose or a vanilla over the top.