Photo credit: John Guccione – www.advergroup.com
If you’ve looked at the price of natural perfumes and done a double take, this blog post should help to explain why natural perfumers need to charge so much for their fragrances.
The cost of niche perfumery can be eye watering at times and natural perfumery tends to be on the higher end of the spectrum by necessity. Today, I’m going to walk you through some natural materials commonly used in luxury natural perfumes and compare them to the synthetic equivalents to help explain why natural perfumes cost so much, working from the most reasonably-priced material pairings to the most outrageously-priced ones.
THE METHODOLOGY
Without looking at the cost differentials in advance when putting together the blog post and video, I randomly chose 7 natural materials that I’ve used in my core collection and their synthetic equivalents. I tried to select synthetics that were as close as possible in usage in mainstream perfume to try to be as fair as possible.
Now, before we jump in, I should mention a few caveats. If a natural perfumer is
· Buying ingredients (either knowingly or unwittingly) from a fraudulent source
· Using inexpensive essential oils only (vs. also using absolutes, CO2 extracts, resinoids, etc.) and doing more of an aromatherapy blend-style of perfume, or
· Doing perfumery on a larger scale and having one of the major perfume houses create and compound their fragrances,
they may charge prices more in line with low-end or mid-range mixed media fragrances.
But for those of us who are making small scale natural perfumes in small batches ourselves and have researched our ingredients and suppliers carefully and have studied perfumery to some degree, we tend to use the highest quality materials that we can find and we’re paying a little more for them because we’re purchasing them in smaller quantities.
SIDE NOTE
As a side note for the video version of this content, I recorded the video (three versions on three separate days. Because, technical issues.) and then did the pricing screen captures a couple of weeks later on. Then, I had to do a second screen grab for one of the materials during the editing process.
In that time, 6 of the 14 prices had changed, which also impacted the price differentials. One price had decreased slightly (almost unheard of) and the other 5 had increased significantly. And in the 4 days between writing this and posting it, 2 more prices had increased. The price of the Jasmine Absolute India had increased by $150, in fact, which is not reflected in the case study below. That should also give you an idea of how volatile fragrance materials pricing is.
And it will also explain why my voice sounds like AI when explaining the prices of a few of the materials during the video – because I couldn’t bear the thought of re-recording (for the fourth time) and used an AI version of my voice for those bits. I apologize in advance, because it doesn’t sound amazing.
BERGAMOT ESSENTIAL OIL VS. SYNTHETIC BERGAMOT BASE
OK, so let’s start with the material that has the lowest cost differential and the highest frequency of use of the 7. Perfumers use a whole lot of Bergamot essential oil. And hopefully, more often than not, the more furocoumarin-free or FCF version, which removes the constituents in certain citrus oils that cause photosensitivity. We’ll compare that with the price of Bergamot Givco 104.
Bergamot Givco 104 is a synthetic base that replaces bergamot when mixed media perfumers want to use a less expensive option to Bergamot. It gives the impression of bergamot, but the perfumers might then also use a little bit of natural bergamot EO for naturalness.
For reference, anything with the name Givco in it is a synthetic base made by Givaudan, one of the largest perfume houses and materials companies in the world.
Let’s get to the pricing. 50 grams of Bergamot Givco cost $28.00.
A great-quality Bergamot FCF from one of my favorite suppliers costs $35.75 for 50 grams.
So, in our most reasonable matchup of the 7, the natural costs 1.28 times or 128% of the synthetic equivalent.
JASMINE ABSOLUTE VS SYNTHETIC JASMINE BASE
Next up we have Jasmine, which is one of the most important materials in perfumery. Jasmin Specialty, which is a synthetic base from a Swiss company called Firmenich, another huge leading supplier of perfumery ingredients and perfume manufacturer.
Jasmin Specialty costs $53.50 for 50 grams.
50 grams of Jasmine Absolute India from one of my favorite suppliers cost $437.75.
So, real Jasmine absolute costs 8.18 times or 818% the cost of the synthetic Jasmine base.
ORRIS BUTTER VS. SYNTHETIC ORRIS BASE
Let’s take a look at Orris, another essential floral perfumery material. Orris Givco 204/20 is a newer, but popular orris base, again from Givaudan. It costs $29.00 for 50 grams.
Orris Butter is the solid essential oil of orris root. For context around the cost, the roots need to grow for 3 years before they’re harvested and then they need to age for another 3 years or so before they start to develop their fragrance and can be distilled into orris butter. 50 grams of a good quality orris butter cost $888.00.
So, if you do the calculation, you’ll see that the real thing costs 30.62 times or 3,062% the price of the synthetic base. And we’re just on the third most pricey pairing out of 7.
SANDALWOOD E.O. VS. SYNTHETIC SANDALWOOD
Next, we have Sandalwood, which is indispensable in natural perfumery and then Ebanol, a closely related synthetic material by Givaudan.
Ebanol is $13.00 for 50 grams, whereas a high-quality Sandalwood essential oil from 80-year old logs is 700 Euros or about $770 dollars US.
That makes the natural 59.23 times or 5,923% more expensive than the synthetic equivalent.
Can you buy less expensive natural Sandalwood EO…sure, you definitely can…but sandalwood gets more expensive when you’re looking at essential oil from older logs, an oil that’s aged for several years, oil from Mysore vs. another part of India or from Australia or Vanuatu, and so on.
ROSE OTTO VS. SYNTHETIC ROSE BASE
Okay, let’s cover Rose Otto. Like Jasmine, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of perfume without rose. Even when a fragrance isn’t officially a rose perfume, it frequently contains rose because it’s such an amazing enhancer and blender.
Rose Givco 217 is one of the most frequently used synthetic rose bases in mixed media perfumery. It costs $27 for 50 grams.
Now let’s take a look at Bulgarian Rose Otto, the essential oil of rose. It costs a whopping $1,663 for 50 grams.
That’s 61.59 times or 6,159% of the cost of the synthetic rose base.
NATURAL BETA DAMASCENONE VS. SYNTHETIC DAMASCENONE
On to the next material. Buckle up, because we’re about to check out a particularly expensive synthetic aroma molecule and the natural isolate version of it. This is Damascenone, which is a key trace constituent of rose otto and rose absolute.
While it makes up a tiny percentage of the composition of roses, it has an incredible olfactory impact on the material. It’s responsible for a lot of the wine-like, fruity berry scent of roses.
1 kilo of synthetic Damascenone Total costs $1,049, which sounds really pricey already, and it is.
But wait, there’s more. Let’s look at Beta Damascenone Natural, which is the aroma molecule’s natural version, typically derived from Sugarcane.
It’s $75,000 for a kilo. And, no, that isn’t a clerical error. It really costs $75,000.
Same supplier. Same molecule. But the natural version costs 71.5 times or 7,150% of the synthetic one.
Now, a small perfumer like me is going to buy the minimum order quantity of beta damascenone natural diluted to 1% or 5% because it’s used in small volumes, but the diluted, lower quantity cost is still based on that high, full-strength per kilo price. We‘re just not actually forking over $75,000 for it. And I buy mine from a supplier with smaller minimum order quantities than a kilo, which also helps a bit with the overall cost.
AMBRETTE SEED CO2 VS. SYNTHETIC AMBRETTE
And now for the last pairing on our list and, therefore, the one that’s the most outrageous: Ambrette Seed.
Ethylene Brassylate is an ambrette-like synthetic musk that’s used widely in mixed media perfumery. Since it’s used in high volumes, we’ll use the kilo price, which is $50.
Ambrette Seed CO2 is a botanical musk that‘s used frequently in luxury natural perfumery. Personally, I love it and use it all the time. One of my favorite suppliers charges 6,000 Euros for a kilo of Ambrette Seed CO2. That’s about $6,600 US dollars and that’s actually a pretty good price.
Which makes this the materials pairing with the biggest disparity of the 7 we’ve reviewed, with Ambrette Seed CO2 costing 132 times or 13,200% the cost of the synthetic equivalent.
THE WRAP-UP
So, hopefully the next time you compare natural perfumery and mixed media fragrance prices, you’ll have a better idea of the rationale for some of the difference in pricing between the two.
In a future blog post and video, I’ll talk a little more about where large perfume companies spend their money vs. where niche and natural perfumers do.
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