The 8 Most Expensive Perfume Ingredients in the World
Fact checked by Michelle Regalado
Have you ever wondered what goes into creating your favorite scent? How does Chanel No. 5 become one of the most popular perfumes in the world? And why do some perfumes cost so much? The secret, according to experts, lies in the main ingredients.
"Perfumery is like composing music with different notes to balance things out. A balanced fragrance should have all the components for consumers to experience each stage of fragrance harmoniously," says cosmetic chemist Ginger King. "The heavier woody notes are usually the base note that lingers; the middle note is the body, which can be the rose/jasmine [floral], and the top note is usually light, fruity/citrus notes."
The finest—and most expensive—perfumes are made of absolute oils, which come from certain types of flowers. If you see a very inexpensive perfume that claims to have one of these rare ingredients, it is most likely made of synthetic fragrances created in labs to imitate the actual ingredient.
When it comes to cost, the rarer the ingredient, the more expensive it will be. As for the ingredients, they can come from many places and things: flowers, wood, and even the glands of animals or the insides of whales.
"Scarcity makes things expensive and same with these materials. It takes a lot of flowers to produce one kilo of the essential oil and there are seasonalities that you must harvest at certain time. So all these expensive materials are expensive mainly due to sourcing," says King.
We reached out to King and cosmetic beauty chemist David Petrillo to learn more about the most expensive fragrance ingredients in the world, and what makes them so special.
Meet the Expert
Ginger King is a cosmetic scientist and the founder and CEO of Grace Kingdom Beauty, a cosmetic product development company.
David Petrillo is a cosmetic beauty chemist based in Reno, Nevada.
Keep reading to learn more about the most treasured ingredients of perfume, and what makes them so rare.
Jasmine
Jasmine and its synthetic version are used in more than 80 percent of all women's perfumes. But the real stuff is expensive.
It takes approximately 2000 pounds of jasmine flowers to produce one pound of oil and 8000 jasmine flowers to yield 1/25 ounce of the absolute oil (the most precious of the oils because it's so concentrated). Because of the enormous amount of flowers it takes to produce the oil necessary to use in fragrances, the price of jasmine oil is extremely high.
You'll pay $96 for 1/8 of an ounce on the reputable Mountain Herbs website. Compare this to lavender oil, which costs $13 for 1/2 ounce.
"The extraction process is also labor-intensive and requires many blossoms, which bloom only at night, making harvesting challenging," says cosmetic beauty chemist David Petrillo. What's more, jasmine flowers are incredibly fragile and must be placed in special baskets to protect the petals from bruising. They also have to be produced into oil immediately.
Scent: Floral, sweet, clean and slightly fruity, with a hint of green notes.
Pairs well with: Rose, for a classic floral and sweet scent; sandalwood, for a warm, creamy, and slightly woody scent; vanilla for a sweet, warm scent.
Bulgarian Rose
Like jasmine, rose oil is found in most fragrances. But rose production is even more time intensive and therefore more expensive than jasmine.
While it takes 2000 pounds of jasmine oil to produce a pound of oil, it takes 10,000 pounds of rose petals to distill one pound of the highly coveted rose oil.
According to Petrillo, Bulgarian roses, particularly Rosa Damascena, are renowned for their exquisite scent, but they are cultivated in limited regions, such as the Rose Valley in Bulgaria, which produces 70 percent of the world's rose oil. The picking season in this valley dates back more than 300 years and is very short. Workers only have a few weeks from May to June to pick the flowers and they have to get their jobs done in the dark before sunrise. Each flower has to be cut individually, laid in willow baskets and then taken immediately to a distillery.
"The extraction method, known as steam distillation, is time-consuming and requires a significant quantity of rose petals to yield a small amount of essential oil," says Petrillo. No wonder it costs a whopping $237 for 1/8th an ounce of Bulgarian Rose absolute essential oil on Mountain Herbs.
Because of the high price of rose oil, cheating is rampant. Some rose producers cheat the system by diluting the oil with geranium or palmarosa essential oils, which contain the same chemical as rose oil. Some of these so-called "rose oils" are up to 90 percent geranium or palmarosa to 10 percent rose.
Scent: Intensely floral with a rich, deep rose note, with sweet, spicy, and honeyed undertones.
Pairs well with: Geranium, for a slightly citrusy aroma; jasmine, for an intoxicating, sweet, and floral aroma; patchouli, for an earthy, woody and exotic scent; violet, for a soft, powdery, and slightly sweet scent.
Orris
"Orris is derived from the rhizomes of the iris plant, specifically Iris germanica and Iris pallida," says Petrillo, noting that these rhizomes take several years to mature before they can be processed. "The extraction process involves drying the rhizomes for several years and grinding them into a powder."
James Craven, a perfume archivist at Les Senteurs in London, named orris, one of the top three most expensive perfume ingredients in the world. Why? Because it's a huge headache to make the stuff. You need one ton of iris plant bulbs (roots) that have been aged two to five years to produce 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) of essential oil.
Scent: Powdery, violet-like, and slightly woody.
Pairs well with: Violet, for a soft and romantic powdery fragrance; rose, for a timeless floral blend with a powdery and slightly sweet undertone; sandalwood, for a creamy and deeply warm fragrance; cedarwood, for a woody and earthy scent.
Oud
Oud (or "oudh") comes from the wood of a wild tropical tree called the agar. While it might sound dimple to harvest, the wood has to become infected with a type of mold called "Phialophora parasitica," which causes the wood to produce oud, a dark, extremely fragrant resin. Apparently, only 2 percent of agar trees produce oud, making it incredibly precious, and therefore, expensive.
Due to its rarity, high demand, and the difficulty of harvesting it, oud oil is one of the most expensive oils in the world. At one point, its value was estimated to be 1.5 times of the value of gold, and it is sometimes referred to as "liquid gold."
Oud has been popular in the Middle East for centuries and is enjoying a boom here in the West with more and more brands creating woody, smoky oud fragrances. But they all come at a price. Gucci's Gucci Oud fragrance will set you back ?$137. Tom Ford's Tobacco Oud, a favorite, costs $340.
Scent: Woody, smoky
Pairs well with: Florals and woody scents
Musk
While natural musk is one of the most expensive animal products in the world, the vast majority of musk produced and sold in the world these days is synthetic. Why? Because to get real, authentic, natural musk, you must first kill a male musk deer, which is an endangered animal in the Nepal region. It's purely unethical and cruel.
"These days you can musk from synthesis, but even with synthetic materials to achieve that scent, it is still can be expensive," says King of the ingredient, which smells warm, woody, and well, animal-like.
Natural musk was used extensively until the late 19th century when ethics started to become a factor and people stopped the slaughter of these deer due to hunting and trade bans. Unfortunately, poachers still kill these deer, harvest their musk pods, which are glands located in the abdomen near the deer's penis, and then create a grain from the dried-out musk pod.
"Musk is a versatile and foundational scent note that pairs well with a wide range of fragrances to create complex and appealing scent combinations," says Petrillo. "It can add depth, sensuality, and longevity to a fragrance."
Scent: Deep, woody, and resinous aroma that has smoky, animalic, and balsamic undertones.
Pairs well with: Vanilla for a warm, sweet scent; amber's for a warm, deep scent; patchouli, for a deep, earthy scent with sweet and woody undertones; sandalwood for a creamy and smooth fragrance.
Byrdie Tip
If you are vegan but enjoy the scent of musk, you can still wear it. So long as it is not poached musk.
Ambergris
Craven told Bloomberg News that Ambergris is one of the three most expensive perfume ingredients today.
"Ambergris is a secretion produced by sperm whales and is exceptionally rare due to the scarcity of sperm whale populations and the difficulty of finding washed-up specimens," says Petrillo.
"Ambergris must be collected from floating sea, so fecal matter," adds King of the unusual way to obtain the ingredient.
Scent: A unique and complex scent with marine, sweet, and earthy notes, emitting an oceanic aroma.
Pairs well with: Citrus, the fresh and zesty notes of citrus, such as bergamot or lemon, can complement ambergris, adding a bright and uplifting aspect to the fragrance; vanilla, for a warm and creamy, inviting fragrance; orris, for a powdery and floral fragrance that is sophisticated and refined.
Saffron
In the culinary world, saffron is one of the most expensive spices globally, but it's also used in perfumery for its warm, spicy, and earthy notes. According to Petrillo, "each saffron crocus flower produces just a few threads of saffron, making it a labor-intensive and time-consuming ingredient to harvest."
Saffron has a slightly sweet aroma with "hints of hay and earthiness" and is often described as "having a complex, floral, and somewhat medicinal scent," says Petrillo.
Scent: Floral, sweet, clean
Pairs well with: Exotic flowers like frangipani, gardenia, and magnolia
Tuberose
If you're a fan of sweet perfumes, they might contain tuberose, which is known for its intoxicating, sweet, and floral aroma. "Often used in high-end perfumes, tuberose flowers are challenging to cultivate and require specific conditions for optimal growth, adding to their cost," says Petrillo, who adds that tuberose is known for its intense, heady, and sweet floral fragrance.
Scent: Floral, sweet, clean
Pairs well with: Florals like gardenia, orange blossom, and ylang ylang.
Up Next: 9 Tips for Applying Perfume, Straight From Fragrance Experts
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