What’s in the bottle?
Apart from a cute bottle, what do you get when you buy a bottle of fragrance? I thought it might be useful to compare the offerings.
A carrier will make up the largest proportion of all the ingredients in a fragrance. This benefits the seller economically because carrier will be the cheapest ingredient, but it also benefits the consumer. The fragrant ingredients, whether natural essential oils or synthetic fragrance oils, are highly concentrated. With very few exceptions, they should not be applied to skin unless they have been diluted in some way.
In the Western world the overwhelming proportion of fragrances are alcohol based. Oil-based perfumes, including solid perfumes, are much more common in the Middle East. This may have something to do with religious objections to handling alcohol, but oil-based fragrances can also be better suited to hotter, drier climates.
Alcohol-based fragrances
The alcohol that is used as a carrier for fragrances is normally ethanol. Ethanol evaporates quickly and does not have a particularly strong odour of its own. It does not leave a residue on fabrics. It can be used on hair in cultures that do not normally use oil as a hair cosmetic.
There will typically be about 5 – 10% water in the alcohol base of a fragrance. The alcohol may be denatured (cut with a very small amount of very unpalatable substances) to avoid alcohol duties. It may also contain small quantities of other substances, for example to stabilise the mixture of alcohol and the fragrance ingredients.
Commercial fragrances should show the percentage alcohol on the packaging. It’s normally on the back or the bottom of the box. This is from a Penhalligon’s fragrance:
Assuming that the base alcohol used in the fragrance will contain about 5% water, in this Penhalligon’s fragrance the aromatic content is likely to be 15% or slightly less.
The definitions of the categories of alcohol-based fragrances do not appear to be regulated. I believe these descriptions to be representative:
Eau de Cologne
Eau de Cologne is the lightest, least concentrated of alcohol-based fragrances. It typically comprises 1% – 5% fragrant ingredients. In this image, 2% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid (red wine):
Eau de Toilette
Eau de Toilette can contain anything from 5% – 15% fragrant ingredients, but I believe the concentration most often falls in the 4% – 8% range. In this image, 6% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid:
Eau de Parfum
Eau de Parfum Normally contains 15% – 20% fragrant ingredients. Here 15% of the volume of the bottle has been filled with coloured liquid:
Perfume
Perfume, sometimes called Perfume Extract, typically contains around 20% fragrant ingredients. The range can vary from 15% up to 40%.
Oil based and solid perfumes
Alcohol-based fragrances make up the majority of the output of Western perfume houses. These are the brands that dominate the ground floor of department stores and the advertising revenues of fashion magazines. A few indie perfumers market oil-based fragrances, often alongside a range of alcohol-based offerings. Of these, some offer the same range as either alcohol-based or oil-based. Solid perfumes are a still smaller niche of the market. Solid perfumes are oil-based with the addition of a little wax.
While cosmetics and perfumes are heavily regulated in the West, this is not true in the rest of the world. In many nations there is no obligation to provide a list of ingredients, and the use of synthetic fragrances is common. Many of these are stronger than their natural equivalents, and cheaper.
I haven’t found any oil-based equivalent to the Eau de Cologne – Eau de Toilette – Eau de Parfum – Perfume levels of concentration in alcohol-based fragrances. So I asked four perfume companies a direct question about the proportion of aromatics and carrier oil in their products. I have examples of the products from all four companies. They differ greatly, but I like them all. All four companies answered me very promptly, for which I am grateful. There is a striking difference between the answers from the Western and Eastern traditions. I’ll let you form your own opinions about them:
Western
The owners of two indie perfume companies in Europe answered my question:
Francesca Bianchi is based in Holland. She stressed that her oils were intended for body and hair, containing smaller quantities of concentrates than a perfume for more topical use. However, many people use these oils in the same way that they might use an alcohol-based perfume. She gave the proportion of aromatics in her oils as “around 5%”.
Christina Pandolfo Is the owner of Plenilunium Botanica based in Wales, in Bridgend. (Plenilunium Botanica is a very new brand at the time of writing (Spring 2021) and Christina is still trading through the Domina Lunae Apothecary websitesite.) Christina was concerned to stress the need to dilute essential oils because it is not safe to use them neat. She quoted a proportion of 6-7 drops in 10ml of carrier oil, which by my reckoning works out at around 3%.
Eastern
Representatives of two companies specialising in Eastern perfume oils gave answers in stark contrast to the Western perfumers:
Luxury Scent is a company based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the Northeast of England. The company markets imported perfume oils. Their response to my question was:
“20/30% is the lowest essence in our oils, most of them are higher than that and some of them absolutely essence.”
Aromatan Cosmetics is based in India, in Mumbai. It is the office of a perfumery in the Arabic tradition called Dukhni. Taha Nabee responded from their Customer Service:
“Typically the dilution % ranges between 20‐40% of pure concentrates”.