Potpourri is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material, used to provide a gentle natural scent in houses. Potpourri is usually placed in a decorative wooden bowl (when collected or purchased in bulk), or tied in small bags made from sheer fabric, called "sachets". Sachets have the advantage of being portable, you can place them in drawers, pin them to pillows, or carry them in your purse wherever you go.
Here at Lichen-Z-Farm we mix our own blends of potpourri to create the ultimate Potpourri Sachets! We offer the following:
- Tea Rose
- Red Rose
- Lavender
- French Country
- Kona Coffee
- Chocolate
- Sandalwood
- Pumpkin Spice
- Gardenia
- French Vanilla
- Apple Spice
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More About Potpourri
Potpourri is a natural air freshener made from dried flowers, leaves, seeds and cones. Pronounced po-pur-ree, it is used to make rooms and cupboards smell fresh. Anything can be added to potpourri as long as it is dry, to ensure that the contents last longer and do not become moldy. Potpourri can be arranged in bowls or stuffed into small cotton pillows to be hung in cupboards.
Other uses for potpourri include masking the smell of mothballs in cupboards and deterring insects. Sachets can be placed in drawers or in shoes to leave a fresh scent. You can place loose potpourri in ashtrays in cars and in the fillings of soft toys.
Potpourri is used to give the air a pleasant smell. By mixing oils, leaves, or dried flowers to your taste, you make potpourri. When mixed, you need to enclose the mixture in a bottle or jar, and let it sit for a few weeks. Towards the middle of the weeks, the soon to be potpourri may smell rotten. If you wait a little while longer, it will start to smell better, so don't get discouraged or disappointed.
The word potpourri comes from the French word "pot-pourri," which was the French name for a Spanish stew with a wide variety of ingredients called olla podrida. In English, "potpourri" is often used to refer to any collection of miscellaneous or diverse items.
Scent is also usually added to the dried flowers and can be sprayed on every few days to be absorbed into the flowers. A fixative is necessary to absorb the scent, and the most often used is orrisroot. Other types of fixative include calamus root, dry lavender, tonka bean and sandalwood bark. There are also powdered fixatives, but these are usually used in sachets of potpourri. The powder will not look good on an open decorative arrangement and will not hold the scent as well as the chopped fixatives.
There are many different scents and oils that can be used in a potpourri arrangement. If you have knowledge of aromatherapy, you can select different scents to create a mood or atmosphere in a room. Always be sparing with essential oils, as they can smell quite strongly. Always sprinkle tiny drops of the oil directly onto the chopped fixatives. With powdered fixative, sprinkle the oil randomly and then mix it in.
The best scents to use are flower scents. These include rose, lavender, violet and carnations. Spices can also be used, including rosemary, cinnamon, sage, thyme and nutmeg. For citrus scents, try lime, mandarin peel, lemon, dried orange and kumquat. Leaves to use in your arrangement include mint, bayberry, cedar, eucalyptus, balsam and pine needles.
Fillers are used in potpourri to add bulk to the arrangement or when stuffing pillows. Filler can be anything from small marbles to pine cones. You can also try using extra leaves, seashells or colored wood shavings. With potpourri flowers, you should go for color rather than scent, as bright colors make the display more eye-catching. Sunflower petals are good to use for an extra burst of color.
It is easy to make your own potpourri. Simply collect all the flowers and filler and leave to dry for a few days in a well-ventilated area. Placing absorbent paper under the mix will help absorb any moisture, but remove the paper after the first day. The petals will be ready to use when they are crisp and dry. A potpourri arrangement makes an ideal gift and brightens up any room.
How to make your own potpourri
1. Collect your ingredients. Try to collect 4 times the amount you will need for the final potpourri mix, as flowers, will shrink when dried.
2. Dry your ingredients for 2 weeks in a warm dark place that has good air circulation. You can air dry your flowers on a window screen that has been laid flat, or you can hang your flowers upside down in bunches.
3. Store your dried flowers in an air-tight container or bag, in a cool, dry place.
4. Prepare your ingredients to be mixed. The fixative is a vital element in a potpourri recipe. Some fixatives you could use are powdered orris root, oak moss, cellulose, ground gum benzoin or fiberfix . The fixative absorbs and retains the volatile scented essences. Essential oils or fragrance oils are used to reinforce the natural perfumes and to boost the scent. Without adequate fixative the life goes out of potpourri very quickly.
5. Include other petals of flowers like lavender, tulips, freesia and marigolds for added color and fragrance. Ingredients such as dried citrus peel, seeds, bark and tiny pinecones add variety to the texture and character of the potpourri. Small, whole dried flowers like baby rosebuds give depth and variety of size. Potpourri made only with petals tends to look like textured fabric. While there is nothing wrong with this, (rainbow like layers of different kinds of flowers can be very beautiful), combining petals with other floral material gives a more three-dimensional result.
Originally, potpourri was stored in closed ceramic jars which were opened when people used the room. The jars were placed near a heat source, so the perfume would expand in the warm air and fill the room with fragrance. When the people went out, the lids went back on. Nowadays, the beauty of potpourri is also considered to be part of its charm. Displayed in various ways, dried petals, whether scented or not, can be layered in glass containers, placed in baskets, decoupage boxes, ceramic or silver dishes.
A little potpourri can go a long way if you layer it over a base of floral foam, sphagnum moss or tissue paper. Store the bulk of your recipe in a closed container and sprinkle out a little at a time on a need to replenish basis. The fragrance lasts longer and the visual impact is the same.
