Question:
I would be really interested to know the price of producing an ounce of a top quality perfume such as Chanel #5 or Patou's Joy. This would include the ingredients, the bottle and the packaging. In other words, the cost of the product when it leave the factory.

Answer:
That really depends on the quantity produced. I'm sure someone like Clinique has an entire perfume production plant, whereas someone like, say, Andy Tauer (who of course just raised his prices for, I suspect, this exact reason) can't have that kind of economy of scale. I'm sure a company like Chanel has relatively low costs of production and their prices are high simply because they are capitalising on their name recognition.
I think it would be tough to quanitfy the exact price of ONE unit for any given company since perfumes are produced in batches of all sizes and ingredients are purchased in various levels of bulk. Those bottles also might be relatively costly to create (especially to fancier glass ones). I would venture to say that costs might reach as high as $50/bottle for very small niche companies and as low as $10 or so for stuff like Curve.

Answer:
The cost of the fragrance materials can vary widely. Floral absolutes like Rose or Orange Blossom can cost $10/gram. Synthetics are in the range of $0.05 to $1.00/gram.

Answer:
Originally Posted by opalsdad I would be really interested to know the price of producing an ounce of a top quality perfume such as Chanel #5 or Patou's Joy. This would include the ingredients, the bottle and the packaging. In other words, the cost of the product when it leave the factory. My guess would be that even the most high quality perfumes return a fairly high profit margin. They can't use only the most expensive ingredients in a given scent; that would be madness. Even if a perfumer is using all natural products, they are not all prohibitively priced.
Also, given the amount of stuff that is produced for each new launch, the economies of scale must be significant. The costs of production and ingredients, however, are probably less than the whole marketing rigmarole: product identity, packaging, advertising, introduction events, promotion; it's all got to add up. In the modern global economy, I'm willing to bet that most internationally distributed products are probably building very heavy marketing and distribution costs into their final asking price.
What pays off for perfumers is that these products all have one degree or another of cachet. Scents are luxury products; nobody really needs more than some basic soap and deodorant, and I'm sure in many places most people even have to do without that much. Add to this that the really big and famous houses can charge a premium for the name on the bottle. I'm sure all of us have bought something, either blind or after cursory testing, because of the maker's reputation; and in many cases we might have bought it only to be disappointed in it at the end.
So, my guess is that perfumers are probably doing OK at least, and maybe even quite well. Their only risk is that a few bad introductions might ruin their reputation and cause a drop in sales.
I have sometimes wondered why, for example, products like Jean Patou's Pour Homme were ultimately discontinued. I think the stuff was pricey enough and popular enough that they could have gone on selling it for much longer than they did. Look at the premium it brings now if you can even find it! Yet Patou has dropped every single men's scent they ever introduced. I can't believe the reasons were solely economic. They must have wanted to alter their image or market profile--or create a scarcity vacuum so they really making a killing on their next introduction. Who knows?
Well, enough on this. I hope others have something to say on this score. I'm interested to know what Basenoters think about this.

Answer:
Marketing 60%, Glass and box 20%, Research 10%, Fragance 10%
Thats my opinion.Simple and easy.

Answer:
Originally Posted by marco_from_chile Marketing 60%, Glass and box 20%, Research 10%, Fragance 10%
Thats my opinion.Simple and easy. ¿Dónde entran en su fórmula las utilidades?
Where are the profits in this formula?


Answer:
We had a really interesting discussion about this not long ago:
/showt...blond+reci pe
The above thread began after a previous discussion we had here:
/showt...blond+reci pe
Both of these had some valuable and very interesting information that may be helpful to you original question.

Answer:
Originally Posted by marco_from_chile Marketing 60%, Glass and box 20%, Research 10%, Fragance 10%
Thats my opinion.Simple and easy. I would agree with your estimate of 10% for the fragrance cost as a percent of the list price but I expect that you are high in your estimate of Research and Glass costs and low in your estimate of Marketing costs. Certainly this will all depend on the specific fragrance. The ingredients used and the perfume oil to alcohol ratio and the extravagance of the bottle will all impact this. But really, the perfume industry is a VERY high markup business with a LOT of middle men taking their cut. That is why the Internet based sales outlets can sell the colognes so much below retail price and still make money.