If you know anything about ONE SEED, you'll know how important transparency is to what we do. We love debunking myths and shining a light into the secret world of fragrance.
Whether you're a perfume aficionado or a newb when it comes to scent, chances are you have some questions about perfume, or what you think you know isn't quite the full story. So we Googled "questions about perfume" to find out exactly what the majority of us are asking.
Here is part 1 of your Top 5 Perfume Questions, answered by our award-winning perfumer and founder, Liz Cook...
1. WHY IS PERFUME SO EXPENSIVE?
There are three possible answers to this question:
1. The fragrance ingredients are often expensive
2. The marketing of perfume is expensive
3. You expect it to be expensive.
(We could actually write an entire article or three on this topic, so we will try to keep the answer brief!)
Let's tackle these one by one...
The Cost of Perfume
Did you know that the average cost to produce ANY 50ml bottle of perfume is around $3-$5!! Yep, that is not an exaggeration. Even if you are forking out upwards of $400 for your favourite scent, the actual juice in the bottles costs the producer no more than $5! (Note: we're specifically talking about non-natural perfumes here, which is 99.9% of what's available. Natural perfume is a completely different story).
Perfume ingredients can be expensive - take ambrette seed as an example - current market cost is around AUD$30,000 a kg! But truth is the cost of synthetic aroma materials is significantly less than the cost of naturals (on average 10x cheaper), so there is almost no natural content in perfumes these days (unless you are a natural perfume company like ONE SEED, or a niche perfumery who values natural and may use a palette of both natural and synthetic). So while the price of ingredients may be a factor in the price you pay at the counter, in reality that is only true of natural perfumes and small niche fragrance houses.
Perfume Marketing
According to Statistica, in 2023, the perfumes & cosmetics/skincare industry in the United States spent approximately 8.54 billion U.S. dollars on advertising, up from 6.46 billion dollars a year earlier. That represents an annual increase of over 32 percent. Big bikkies in anyone's language. What brands are vying for is a share of an industry currently worth around USD $50 billion annually, and growing at a rate of around 5.5% per year.
By far, the biggest cost for well-known fragrance houses is marketing, any many of these companies have annual marketing budgets of tens of millions to even a hundred millions dollars annually. Yup. Just for marketing. Just to get your attention.
Marketing takes the biggest cut of a perfume budget - way higher than the product development, or the actual cost of the juice. On average, marketing spend is five to eight times the cost of producing the fragrance. So we can understand from these stats that perfume can be expensive because the marketing of that sweet little bottle is mind-blowingly expensive. (Translation: you are paying for the billboards, magazine spreads and celebrity endorsements much for than you are paying for the product itself).
You Expect it To Be Expensive
Perception is everything. If you pick up a bottle of scent costing $400, you expect it to be incredible, and to make you feel amazing. It gives you a sense of value, to think you are worth a $400 scent. It's the fragrance you wear to feel like a boss, to feel beautiful, to feel confident, sexy, cool.
Conversely, if your Aunt Mary gifts you a $40 bottle of Brittany Spears Fantasy, you're likely going to reserve that bottle for post-workout or a trip to the supermarket (apologies if you love the scent - Iv'e personally never smelled it, so throwing no shade here!). Point is, it's just not going to have the same impact on you.
A giant factor of the end price of the a fragrance is determined by what the target market would pay for it - what you expect it to cost. And that depends on your perception of the brand, any celebrity who endorses it, the packaging, your perception of yourself, how you want to feel when you wear it, and, of course, the fragrance itself.
At the end of the day, the cost of the juice remains around the same for most perfumes on the market (again, excluding naturals in this story).
So now you have a better understanding of why perfumes can be so expensive.
Coming soon - Part 2: What are "Notes" in Perfume?
