What Goes Into a Perfume's Price?

A drugstore scent that's as affordable as a Thursday-night takeaway. A high-end bottle that costs more than anything else in your apartment. Is there any rhyme or reason to perfume prices?

Perfume price can seem like one of life's great mysteries. The varying prices can leave you wondering: is it worth it to splurge on a high-end bottle? How much will others notice if you pick a less expensive scent to save your budget? 

Fortunately, you don't have to choose. You can find a way to smell expensive with an affordable scent. 

If you want to know how to choose the right bottle that won't break the bank or embarrass you with a low-quality product, keep reading. We will break down the reasons that perfume can be so costly, what separates a good-quality scent from a knockoff, and most importantly, how to smell luxurious without going over budget. 

What Makes a Perfume Smell Expensive?

In a word: quality.

Have you ever spritzed a sample of budget perfume on your wrist, only to recoil from a harsh, saccharine scent? You're smelling the extract of low quality.

The candy-scented perfumes and body sprays that line the shelves of discount stores use synthetic, lab-created molecules to mimic scents. This makes them much less expensive to produce than natural ones, and can be sold at a fraction of the price.

Unfortunately, they simply don't smell good.

High-quality scents use natural ingredients, which are carefully designed and combined to harmonize together. All of these factors create a delightful fragrance, but they also drive up perfume costs.

We tend to associate the harsh-smelling discount scents with immaturity since they are typically bought by younger people who can't afford a designer product. But we associate good-smelling perfumes with desirable qualities like affluence, maturity, and tasteful luxury. A good quality perfume says: "I take care of myself because I know what I am worth." 

Ingredients

For a high-quality perfume, most of its cost comes down to its ingredient list. No one likes a nose-wrinkling synthetic scent, but real perfume ingredients can be extravagantly expensive. 

For instance, did you know that the scent of Bulgarian Rose, one of the most coveted perfume ingredients in the world, requires 10,000 pounds of rose petals to distill one pound of essential oil? Not only that, but Bulgarian roses only grow in Bulgaria's Rose Valley, and can only be harvested for a few weeks every spring. 

Other perfume ingredients are similarly rare and difficult to obtain. Oud is a perfume ingredient prized for its deep, earthy smell, which can only be extracted from the wood of the agar tree which has been infected with a rare wood mold. No wonder this fragrant ingredient can cost up to $5,000 per pound of distilled oil. 

In reality, most perfumes use a combination of natural and artificial scents so that perfumes stay affordable. But a perfume that is of good quality will have at least a few precious ingredients that elevate its price tag.

Sustainable Sourcing

Sourcing the ingredients plays a role as well. As buyers across the globe push for more ethical options in everything they purchase, perfume companies seek to meet that challenge.

Environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free perfumes rely on flowers and other plants to scent their perfumes. However, it's difficult to create a complex scent using only flowers, since most florals stay in the top note range. That's why perfumes usually use many kinds of ingredients to add drama and dimension.

But as the push for vegan products continues, perfumers respond by developing new ways to make a complex scent experience without animal products.

As well, buyers are increasingly interested in sustainable and humane sourcing. That means that perfume companies may alter their supply chains to source more ethical, but more expensive, ingredients.

However, these innovations can all serve to heighten price. 

Scent Design

Imagine trying on a department store suit or little black dress. It fits well, but it doesn't wow you.

Then, imagine going to a high-end boutique and trying on a suit or dress there. This time, it looks divine, flattering you from every angle. Even better, the richness of the fabric seems to give off a mysterious aura of affluence and confidence.

What's different between these two garments? 

That's right: design. 

Just like in designing clothes, perfume companies need designers. They are the experts who bring the right ingredients together in the right balance, creating a new, unique, and top-quality product.

Without perfume designers, we would be stuck with boring, unidimensional scents, but their high salaries will show up in the final cost of the product on the shelves.

Branding

Perfume is more than an entrancing smell. For the buyer, it's an experience — even an identity. For a perfume to sell well, it has to come wrapped in an intriguing aura.

That's why perfume companies work hard to define their brand. In a market already crowded with options, perfumes need to work hard to get noticed. Perfume companies use advertisement campaigns and other tactics to ensure that their product stands out from the crowd.

Advertisement Costs

Advertisement campaigns define the perfume's brand, but they don't come cheap.

Perfume commercials are costly to make. Starring A-list actors with extravagant costumes, they create the identity that perfumers want the public to associate with their product. But all their costs can add up. 

To add star power to their brand, perfume marketers enlist celebrities as ambassadors for their scent or splash their advertisements across the pages of a renowned fashion magazine like Vogue.

Then there are on-the-ground advertisement costs to consider. Salespeople in the stores get commissions for selling the perfume. Finally, the stores themselves have to mark the product price up to make their profit. 

All of these costs are reflected in the final price of the perfume. That means that when you buy a bottle in the store, you're paying for much more than the actual product — you are also paying for the identity associated with it. 

Exclusivity

Many perfume companies know that their customers want the aura of exclusivity that only a designer product can deliver.

In fact, some sources claim that perfume ingredients cost less than 1% of the final market price. Extras such as the bottle, stopper, and display case can cost up to four times more than the scent itself. 

While these claims can't be fully substantiated since ingredients are trade secrets, they hint at how important it is for buyers to feel that they are paying a high price for a quality product. Research shows that, for certain luxury goods, the higher the price, the more demand there is for it. Luxury buyers want to purchase goods that are high-quality and inaccessible to others, making them a status symbol.

Some perfume buyers simply want to pay more, and companies are happy to oblige. That means that a Gucci or Dior perfume price may not have anything to do with the costs mentioned above; instead, it has everything to do with what buyers want to pay. 

This begs the question: how much do you want to pay for your scents? And if you don't want to pay top-shelf price, what options do you have?

What About Knockoffs?

If you are looking to smell great but save your money, you might be considering knockoffs of designer perfumes. However, this may not be the best choice in the long run.

Second-quality perfumes try to mimic high-end scents by capturing only the most distinctive smells: the top notes. Since top notes are the first part of a scent to hit your senses, when you spray the imitation scent on your wrist at the store, it will smell almost identical to its higher-priced alternative.

But the real test of a perfume comes after you have worn it for several hours. With a well-made scent, you'll smell the perfume developing, mellowing from its initial top notes to its underlying bottom notes. 

Lower-quality perfumes don't have the complexity of those richer bottom notes to fall back on. Instead, the smell will begin to go sour, or else wear away completely.

Knockoff perfumes promise a great smell at a good price, but they can't deliver the same quality. 

Choosing the Perfume Price You Want

What does this all mean for you?

It means that you can choose the price that you want to pay for your perfume. 

For some, paying off-the-shelf prices for perfumes — including markups and commission — is the perfect fit for their budget and lifestyle. But if you want to cut through the extras and pay an honest price for your scent, find an affordable online retailer like Perfume Price. 

Yes, it can be intimidating to purchase a scent online. However, finding the right fragrance online isn't as difficult as it may seem, and it can be the solution to your scent dilemma. 

Your Dream Scent, Made Affordable

Interested in finding your dream scent online? Learn how to find the right perfume for you, and browse over a thousand designer scents at Perfume Price. 

Instead of adding to the price tag, Perfume Price eliminates unnecessary costs to bring you high-end scents at wholesale prices. Check out our selection of perfumes from your favorite designers and brands, and find the fragrance you want at the price that suits you.