"As you sit arround her kitchen table, Barbara Sargent, founder of Knots Elementals, talks you through the properties of various base and essential oils. After an hour of concentrated note-talking, I attempted mixing a few drops of neroli, lemon and jojoba, and manage to create a divine-smelling shampoo. My fellow students are less smug: "Mine smells like stuffing", complains one, who has overdone the rosemary.

Indeed, home blends are fallible, but as each dose can be mixed individually, the cost of getting it wrong is tiny. Next, we are taught how to mix body moisturisers, along with all aspects of aromatherapy, such as how to create a mood or banish a skin problem. Sargent's enthusiasm is infectious, but as I trundle home with my exfoliating scrub, hand cream and few oils - all for about £21 - I wonder if I will still be mixing my own body scrub in a fortnight. However, it takes only 20 seconds to mix, so maybe I will manage.

A few weeks later, my main dilemma, apart from which oils to use, turns out to be what to do with the half-empty bottles of shop-bought products that still line my bathroom shelves.

Best bit: Sargent is a former operations director at Penhaligon's, so you are guaranteed good insider tips. And then there are the very cute glass mixing pots."