While you can always get a bottle of low-end perfume for a few dollars at your nearest grocery stores, you might have seen perfumes being sold for hundreds of dollars for a few milliliters online. So why is perfume so expensive?
Branding certainly plays an important part in making a perfume expensive, but there are a number of other factors that go behind the large price tag of the bottle. Luxury brands that specialize in making perfumes are especially expensive.
This article discusses the most common aspects of perfume making that make it a luxury. These aspects include the ingredients, the marketing, the packaging, and much more.
Factors Affecting Perfume Price
If you carry out a quick Google search for perfumes, you will see a wide range of prices to pick from. Why do some perfumes cost less than $10 while some cost over $500? How good can the smell get? Here are some of the factors that explain why perfume is so expensive.
Brand
Luxury fashion houses often have their own range of perfumes. For this reason, you may see brands like Dior and Chanel selling their perfumes for several hundred dollars. This does not mean that these perfumes will be better by default. Liking the smell of a perfume and whether it is a “good” perfume is a matter of personal taste.
However, you have to consider the millions of dollars these firms spend on marketing and branding their products. Luxury fragrance and perfume brands have the top Hollywood names associated with them. Every major actor and musician you can think of has been associated with a high-end perfume line at some point in their career.
The millions of dollars that go into branding, marketing, and getting brand ambassadors on board certainly leads to a trickle-down effect that adds to the price of the perfume. When you watch a celebrity on TV in a perfume ad, what you’re paying for is their endorsement for that smell. This is one of the major contributors that cause colognes and perfumes to be expensive.
Another aspect is the exclusivity that comes with buying a high-priced perfume. With luxury brands, you get a limited selection of perfumes, but you will be a part of the elite few who own that scent. This special feeling itself is worth the money.
Ingredients
Even though a “good” smell is a subjective opinion, some perfumes just have a rich, exotic smell about them that you cannot find in cheaper options. Where does this smell come from?
The answer is the ingredients that go into making it. A number of perfumes use ingredients like essential oils to create a signature scent. While some essential oils are readily available and quite inexpensive, some can quickly add to the price.
There are multiple reasons why essential oils can be so expensive. Some essential oils are very seasonal and are only available for a month per year. Some essential oils, although available, are expensive at their source.
Several essential oils need a large number of raw materials to extract oil from. For example, Neroli essential oil is one of the most expensive essential oils in the world because it takes a thousand kilograms of bitter orange blossoms to obtain a liter of the stuff. This drives up prices as well.
Another factor you need to consider is the complexity of the extraction process itself. Some essential oils, like tea tree and peppermint, are easy to extract from their sources, making them much cheaper than their seasonal counterparts.
Some of the most expensive essential oils in the world include neroli essential oil, sandalwood essential oil, rose essential oil, and cannabis flower essential oil.
Packaging
Have you ever noticed how beautiful the packaging of perfumes is? You will seldom find a high-priced perfume in a basic glass bottle. Every bottle of perfume comes in an exquisite bottle handcrafted to make the wearer feel special.
Even the materials used in creating the external packaging and perfume bottle can add to the price. You will see crystal, silver, and gold being used in perfume bottles to add more signs of luxury when it comes to expensive colognes.
Besides using expensive materials on the bottle, these companies also need to ensure that the beauty of the packaging is maintained and the perfume is protected. Perfumes need to be sealed and stored in a cool, dark place to maximize their shelf life. These factors have to be considered while creating the packaging.
R&D
Research and development are not just departments in tech companies. If you’ve ever made your own perfume, you probably know that getting the scent just right can take a lot of time and effort. Major perfume brands have people working full-time for years to release their newest scent.
The art of making perfumes is a very accurate and complicated process. Just one drop of a particular essential oil in or out of a scent can completely change its tones. When you shell out hundreds of dollars for a small bottle of cologne, a large part of that money goes into paying for all the hours, manpower, and capital that went into creating that perfect formula.
Adding to this is the cost of the actual manufacturing process itself. Not every brand comes up with its own perfumes, and there is a good chance that an expensive perfume is created by using a formula bought from another perfume corporation.
This costs these companies a lot of money in the production process. The extra money that goes into acquiring these formulas for production translates directly into a more expensive perfume bottle for the customer.
Niche Perfumes
While most major companies mass produce their perfumes, some of the more expensive ones are not readily available. You can visit the official website of any French luxury brand and order any one of its offerings. However, niche fragrances are expensive for other reasons.
These fragrances are extremely exclusive and can only be found in certain places in the world. For example, perfumes from brands like Nishane and Amouage cannot be easily bought in any part of the world. You will have to visit the shops where they are located and find the perfume you like for yourself.
The entire concept behind a niche fragrance company is that they’re dedicated to making newer and more exotic perfumes without the backing of a large corporation behind it. These perfumes are very highly-priced to cover the cost of their perfume makers, research, and ingredients.
The Most Expensive Perfumes
If you thought that you knew how expensive perfumes could get, think again. Some brands have taken luxury to another level with their perfumes, and this reflects in the massive price tag that their products come with.
Shumukh
Costing around 1.29 million USD, this perfume comes with diamonds in its packaging, a box that opens with remote control, and other features that will wow you even without the exquisite perfume in it. Unveiled in Dubai, this remains the most expensive perfume product in the world. Only one bottle has ever been made.
DKNY Golden Delicious
While DKNY is often not at the top of a list for expensive products, the Golden Delicious perfume by the company comes a close second at 1 million USD. Like the Shumukh, only one bottle has ever been produced. The high price tag comes with almost 3,000 jewels embedded in the packaging.
Clive Christian No. 1 Imperial Majesty
Priced at over 12,000 USD per ounce, only ten bottles of this perfume were ever made. A lot of gold, diamonds, and crystal were used to make this perfume’s packaging, giving it its hefty price tag. The perfume itself includes floral tones and hints of rose, vanilla, and jasmine.
The Bottom Line
Perfumes are not just something you spray on before leaving the house to smell better. They have become much more than that. In today’s world, perfumes are considered luxury products, and many high-end brands manufacture, advertise, and sell their products at high prices.
Why is perfume so expensive?
The reason why perfumes are so expensive is because of the seasonal and rare nature of the ingredients used in them, the marketing and branding that goes behind creating a successful perfume, the luxurious and safe nature of their packaging, and the price of research and development. Other perfumes are expensive because they’re not mass-produced and qualify as niche fragrances.
To learn more about similar topics, please check out our other posts as well!
