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Cologne, Eau de Parfum And
Perfume
What's the difference
between cologne, eau de parfum and perfume?
BY JULIA LAYTON
Chanel's
"Coco" eau de toilette costs $68 for 1.7 ounces. For the same volume,
"Coco" eau de parfum goes for $85.
"Coco" parfum, meanwhile, costs $105 for
just 0.25 ounces.
What's the difference, aside from price?
That collection of similarly pretty bottles on perfume
shelves is in fact a fairly varied group of products.
Names like "eau de cologne" and "eau de
parfum" are not just fancy ways of saying "perfume."
Perfume is, like the other designations, a specific
version of a scent.
There was a time when the perfume formulation was the
only version of a scent.
Perfume was for the elite, those who could afford the
price of the pure essential oils that, along with alcohol, make up a
fragrance.
But around the start of the 1900s, perfume houses
started mass-marketing variations of their expensive scents to satisfy a
different, much larger market.
Now, we see bottles of eau de cologne, eau de toilette,
eau de parfum and perfume (or parfum) -- and most of us aren't entirely sure
what we're choosing between.
Is it about how they smell? Whom they're made for? How
they're applied?
Sort of -- but there's a far more basic difference. It
has to do with concentration, or the percentage of fragrance oils in the
liquid.
The tricky thing is that the concentration doesn't
only affect strength.
Eau de cologne, for one, which (surprise!) is not in
fact a gender-specific format, can actually smell different from a perfume
version of the same scent.
Fragrance Concentration of Cologne
In 1709, chemist Johann Farina
created a fragrance blend of citrus and cedar and named it for the town where
it was conceived. Cologne, Germany, thus became the production point of one of
the most popular scents of its time.
Farina's Eau de Cologne is still
sold today in its original recipe, and that product is the only true Cologne
(with a capital C), much the way the only true Champagne comes from the
Champagne wine region in France.
Today, though, many people -- especially in the United
States -- use the term "cologne" (lowercase) to mean "men's
fragrance," a cultural tweak that has become common usage.
What all colognes, true or not,
have in common is their concentration of essential oils.
Eau de cologne is a weak formulation, typically
containing anywhere from 2 to 5 percent essential oils in a base of mostly
alcohol but also water, which characterizes most fragrances.
The low concentration results in several qualities
that distinguish cologne from other forms of scent.
First, the cost per ounce is one of the lowest, and
the scent only lasts for an hour or two.
Second, it's the scent's top notes (the first ones you
smell after application) that are dominant.
Because cologne fades quickly, other scent components
of the recipe tend to fall away, resulting in a product that may smell markedly
different from other versions of the same fragrance.
The formulation known as eau de toilette is close to
cologne on the concentration scale, containing approximately 5 to 10 percent
fragrance oils.
Some perfume houses use the terms interchangeably,
along with "eau fraîche" (or "fresh water"), to describe a
low-concentration product.
Regardless of the name, it's a formulation that allows
the user to apply more, and more often, without being over-scented.
Eau de parfum, on the other hand,
requires more restraint.
Fragrance Concentration of Eau de Parfum
If fragrance progression follows
social norms (and many would say it does), then the increased popularity of eau
de parfum in the 1980s might reflect the stereotypical wearer of that decade:
bold, financially savvy and tending toward excess.
More concentrated than eau de
cologne and eau de toilette, eau de parfum ranges from about 10 to 15 percent
essential oils.
The result is a fragrance that lasts a lot longer than
cologne, up to five hours, so it requires less-frequent application (and women
on the go rejoice).
It's not so strong, however, that it needs to be
applied as drops; eau de parfum is still light enough to be sold as a
purse-worthy, high-volume spray (again, women on the go rejoice).
This type of fragrance puts the
attention on the middle notes, which take over after the top notes fade.
Middle notes, sometimes also known as "heart
notes," are dominant from about 15 minutes to a couple of hours after
application and are considered to be the core of the scent.
Eau de parfum is more expensive than eau de cologne
and eau de toilette, so it's a less popular variety.
Since it lasts so much longer, though, and can be
applied in smaller doses, many people find it to be an affordable formulation.
And then there's perfume, which
few would ever call affordable. It's the original, the elite, the pure.
Fragrance Concentration of
Perfume
The highest-concentration scent
format, perfume (also called parfum, parfum extrait or perfume extract) has
traditionally scented the wealthy.
It's the purest of the fragrance recipes, with the
highest concentration of expensive essential oils and the least amount of
alcohol and water. In some cases, it may contain no water at all.
Historically, perfume is the original scent, the base
from which all other varieties are diluted. Perfume concentrations range from
15 percent all the way up to 40 percent, with an industry average of about 25
percent.
Unlike eau de parfum and eau de cologne, which may be
applied liberally and practically anywhere, perfume is meant to be applied in
tiny amounts using a dropper, and scenting only the pulse points, including the
insides of wrists and elbows, the throat, behind the ears and between the
breasts.
At these points, the skin is warmest, allowing for the
greatest fragrance release.
Of all scent varieties, perfume lasts the longest, up
to seven hours.
Its concentration also provides for the greatest depth
of scent, with top, middle and base notes all having ample time to develop.
It also offers some price justification: Perfume
simply has more of the good stuff.
Thus the "Coco" parfum selling at 10 times
the price of the eau de toilette.
Brand name plays into the price, too, of course. It's
tough to imagine concentration accounts entirely for Clive Christian's
"No. 1," which runs $865 for 1.6 ounces.
Though it's worth noting that if you're partial to
that scent (Neiman Marcus calls it "Oriental-ambery"), it really is
all or nothing: No. 1 doesn't come in eau de parfum.
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