EDT vs EDP vs parfum vs extrait: what the strengths mean
The letters after a fragrance's name, EDT, EDP, parfum, extrait, say roughly how concentrated it is. They matter when you shop, because the same name in two strengths is two products at two prices. Here is what the words mean, and how far you can rely on them.
The usual ranges
The figures most often quoted are these, as given in Wikipedia's article on perfume under "Dilution classes":
- Parfum or extrait de parfum: 15–30% fragrance oil
- Eau de parfum (EDP): 15–20%
- Eau de toilette (EDT): 5–15%
- Eau de cologne (EDC): 2–3%
- Eau fraîche: 3% or less
Other sources draw the lines a little differently. One guide puts parfum and extrait at 20–40% (Decant House); another says parfum is "generally 20–30% oil" and cologne 2–4% (Everfumed).
No rule fixes them
That spread is not carelessness. There is "no legal or industry standard that defines these names", and "each house draws its own line" (Everfumed). Wikipedia puts it the same way: the terms are "quite imprecise about oil concentration", and different houses "assign different amounts of oils to each of their perfumes" (Wikipedia).
So one house's EDP can be stronger than another's parfum. The label tells you where a bottle sits in its own house's range, not an exact percentage.
Stronger does not always mean longer-lasting
It is natural to expect a parfum to last longer than an EDT, and it often does. But how long a fragrance lasts depends on what it is made of as well as how much of it there is. "The materials matter more than the percentage", in one guide's words (Everfumed); another says it is "not always necessarily about concentration levels, it's about the formulation of the oils" (Decant House).
One name, several products
Many popular fragrances come in more than one strength, and they are sold, and priced, as separate products. Dior, for example, sells Sauvage as an eau de toilette, an eau de parfum and a parfum, and Sauvage Elixir as another product again, described by one retailer as having "an extreme concentration" (John Lewis).
FragranceSeek gives each strength its own page and never puts one strength's price beside another's:
- Dior Sauvage EDT: $68.99 for 100 ml at eBay
- Dior Sauvage EDP: $65.00 for 100 ml at eBay
- Dior Sauvage Parfum: $65.00 for 100 ml at eBay
- Bleu de Chanel EDP: no price we can show right now
- Bleu de Chanel Parfum: $82.49 for 100 ml at eBay
These prices are read when the page loads: the lowest we currently hold at each bottle's main size, before shipping.
When you compare prices
- Check the strength as well as the size. A cheap "Sauvage 100 ml" may be the EDT when you were looking for the EDP. Listings do not always say it prominently; our post on how a price can look better than it is covers that and other traps.
- Do not compare across strengths by price alone. A higher concentration usually costs more per millilitre, and it is a different product, not a bigger dose of the same one.
- Try before you commit, where you can. If two strengths of one fragrance are both on your list, a sample of each tells you more than the label.
Clone houses use the same words, with the same lack of a rule behind them. When you look at an alternative on our Clone Finder, the strength in its name is the one its maker gives it.