What does it cost to start making perfume?

Starting small keeps it modest: a scale, some glass, pipettes, blotters, perfumer's alcohol and five to ten materials. The equipment is bought once. The materials are the ongoing cost, and what they cost depends on how many you buy, which ones and in what size. Prices vary by country and supplier, so this page gives no figures; it shows what drives them and where to save.

What do I have to buy?

• A scale that reads 0.01 g. Perfume is weighed, never measured in drops. A jewellery scale is enough to begin.
• Glass: small beakers or vials to weigh into, a bottle with a tight cap for the concentrate, a spray bottle for the finished perfume.
• Pipettes, one per material.
• Blotters (smelling strips), for every material and every trial.
• Perfumer's ethanol, to dilute the concentrate, and a little Dipropylene glycol for 10 percent dilutions of strong materials.
• Five to ten materials.
• Nitrile gloves and safety glasses.

How to make perfume at home covers each item and a first formula.

Which costs come once, and which keep coming?

The scale and the glass come once and last. Pipettes and blotters are consumables you replace as you go. Alcohol and materials are the running cost, and they grow with the number of trials you make, not with the size of your ambition. A 10 g concentrate is enough for a first trial: at 18 percent it fills two 30 ml bottles.

What makes perfume materials cost more or less?

• How many you buy. Every material is a bottle. A small palette you know well costs less, and teaches more, than a large one you have not smelled.
• Which ones. Price follows the material, not whether it is natural. Sweet Orange Essential Oil is an inexpensive workhorse and Ethylene Brassylate is one of the cheapest macrocyclic musks; Orris Butter is among the most precious materials in perfumery. Aroma chemicals vs essential oils goes further.
• Size and minimum orders. Suppliers sell in set sizes, and the smallest usually costs the most per gram. Shipping counts too: your real price per gram is what you paid, delivery included, divided by what arrived.
• Dilution. Strong materials are used diluted, which stretches a small bottle a long way. Indole is typically worked from a 1 percent dilution and Damascenone from 0.1 percent: one gram of a material at 1 percent makes 100 g of dilution.
• How much a formula uses. A base material used generously empties its bottle long before a trace material does.

How do I start small?

Buy the smallest size of five to ten materials that cover the three parts of the pyramid, for example Bergamot FCF Essential Oil and Lavender Essential Oil on top, Hedione in the heart, and Iso E Super, Ambroxan, Ethylene Brassylate and Vanillin in the base. Weigh trials of 10 g or less. Make several versions of one idea before buying anything new. When a material runs out because you keep reaching for it, that is when a larger size makes sense.

What should I not buy at first?

• Large sizes. The per-gram saving only pays if you use them, and some materials want fresh stock: limonene, the main molecule of citrus oils, and linalool are restricted under IFRA by their peroxide content.
• Precious naturals, before you know what to do with them. Learn the structure with affordable materials first.
• Big kits of materials chosen by someone else, and several near-identical materials for the same job.
• Packaging, before the formula is settled.
• A 0.001 g scale. Useful later, for small amounts of strong materials; not needed on day one.

Which tools are free?

The calculators run in your browser with no account: the dilution calculator, the batch calculator, the perfume making calculator and the IFRA check for Category 4. The catalog is free to browse. PerfuMate itself is free to start; the plans show what a paid plan adds.

What does the first perfume actually use up?

Very little. The first formula in the at-home guide weighs 10 g of concentrate in total, several of its lines at 1 g or less, and a 30 ml bottle at 18 percent needs about 4.5 g of it. The smallest sizes last many trials. The cost that grows is the number of trials, which is also how you learn.

In PerfuMate you can record what each bottle cost, and the cost breakdown of a formula prices every line from the bottle it was weighed from, dilutions included. How to price a handmade perfume takes that further. Start a formula, free.