Perfume oil, attar, extrait, EDP: what the label actually tells you

The concentration word on an indie perfume's product page is not a measurement. There is no law in the EU or the US that defines what an eau de parfum must contain, the conventional percentage ranges for each tier overlap one another, and the house picks the word after the formula is finished.

That sounds unhelpful in September, when plenty of people are rebuilding a routine and meeting terms like attar, huile de parfum and extrait for the first time. It isn't. The label still tells you three reliable things: what the perfume is dissolved in, how it is applied, and, once the division is done, what a millilitre costs.

The words are conventions, not measurements

The ranges usually quoted are extrait de parfum 15–30 per cent, eau de parfum 10–20, eau de toilette 5–15. Every tier overlaps the one above it, so an eau de parfum from one house can hold more perfume concentrate than another house's extrait, and both labels are lawful. The order is an inherited convention rather than a standard.

The clearest demonstration here is PRIN, the Bangkok project Prin Lomros has run since 2016 across three related labels, described by the perfumer as "three houses, three directions under one roof and one perfumer". Its 92 entries in the library carry at least four different concentration words. SARINGKARN is filed as Extrait de Parfum at $15–$180. Saringkarn Saringkarn is filed as Parfum at $280, and its published note list is identical: cocoa, damask rose, saffron, Trat oud, tobacco, leather, civet, tar, amber. SGÀIL, a wool-and-peat composition, is Parfum at $260 with a $20 sample. L'OMBRE D'HIER is Extrait de Parfum. A SORTA FAIRYTALE IN HYDE PARK, all iris, heliotrope and orange blossom, is Eau de Parfum, listed at $8.

Same perfumer, same workshop, four words. Read them as the house's filing system, not as a strength ladder.

Oil or spray is the fork that matters

The distinction that genuinely changes the object in your hand is the carrier. Alcohol-based perfumes are atomised and cover a wide area of skin or cloth in one go. Oil-based perfumes are placed point by point with a wand or a fingertip, which makes them quieter to apply at a desk and harder to over-apply by accident.

Possets Perfume, founded in Cincinnati in 2005 by Fabienne Christenson (1951–2016) and continued by Gordon Christenson, is the straightforward American oil house: 140 of its 143 entries in the library are labelled Perfume Oil, most at $24–$95. Solis Anima opens on blood orange, lychee tea and screwpine flower over tamarind, cucumber and tomato leaf. Dies Irae (Verdi) goes the other way entirely, with musk, galbanum, hawthorne, rotting leaves and frankincense. No concentration percentage is offered for either, because "perfume oil" is a format, not a tier.

Olfa Originals, founded in New Delhi in 2016 by Pallavi Bhatia, sells both formats under one name. Oud Art '46 | OUD D'OR comes as a 100ml Eau de Parfum at 12500 INR, a 50ml at 7500 INR, and a 6ml huile de parfum (absolut) at 4800 INR. The composition is the same on the page either way: geranium, then saffron, clove, caraway, palmarosa and musk, over oud, amber, guaiac wood, cedar and sandalwood. Elsewhere the house offers only one option, as with Oud Khayali, 100ml Eau de Parfum at 15500 INR.

Attar, tola, and buying by weight

In current trade, attar means an oil-based perfume in the Indian and Arabian tradition. The giveaway is the unit. Traditional sellers price by the tola, an Indian unit of weight of roughly 11.66 grams, conventionally rounded to a 12ml bottle, with half and quarter tolas at about 6ml and 3ml. Artisan makers often go further and sell by exact grams, because oils differ in density and a millilitre is not a fixed amount of material.

Rising Phoenix Perfumery, J.K. DeLapp's Atlanta atelier, does exactly that. Shocking 1937, a honey-and-narcissus composition with civetta, musk, amber and sandalwood in the base, is sold as a 0.3 gram V-vial at $52.50, a 1.5 gram vial at $235, and a boxed quarter tola of 3 grams at $425. The same house files other releases as Perfume Oil rather than Attar, so even inside one atelier the two words are separate drawers rather than a hierarchy.

Sultan Pasha Attars in the UK keeps the tola ladder but prices in millilitres: Dewaniya, a woody, smoky thing with Cambodian, Indian and Bengali oud, Mysore sandalwood, ambergris, castoreum and hyraceum, runs 1ml $121.36, 3ml $344.77, 6ml $620.59, 12ml $1034.31. That top size is one tola.

The only number worth comparing

Divide the price by the size and the labels stop mattering.

• Oud Art '46 works out at 125 INR per ml for the 100ml eau de parfum and 800 INR per ml for the 6ml oil: roughly six times as much per millilitre, before any question of how much gets applied.
• Shocking 1937 is $175 per gram in the 0.3 gram vial and about $142 per gram at the quarter tola.
• Dewaniya is $121.36 for the first millilitre and about $86 per millilitre at 12ml.

The small size is a sample, not a bargain. It is priced as the cost of finding out you were wrong.

That is the honest use of PRIN's $15 and $20 samples against full bottles at $180 to $280, and of a 0.3 gram vial against a boxed quarter tola. Buy the smallest unit a house offers, wear it for a week of ordinary indoor days, and only then decide whether the word on the label was ever the point.

Where to start

• SARINGKARN, sample from $15 (full listing $180). For anyone who wants to know what a house means by "extrait" before committing to one: rose, saffron, oud, tobacco and civet in a single sitting.
• Solis Anima, $24–$95. For a first oil-based perfume, and a fruit-and-vetiver one rather than a heavy one: an easy way to learn how dabbing differs from spraying.
• Shocking 1937, $52.50 for the 0.3 gram V-vial. For readers curious about attars priced by weight, at the smallest unit the house sells.