Perfume raw material prices in 2026: what oud, orris and musks cost per kilo, against what you pay per ml

These are small-pack retail prices that perfumers and hobbyists pay, read by 10ML from two named supplier lists in October 2026. The contract prices that perfume houses and fragrance manufacturers pay are not published, so this page cannot show them.

What perfume materials cost per kilo in 2026

On supplier lists for perfumers in October 2026, common synthetics cost around US$95/kg¹ in a 1 kg pack, ambroxan costs US$1,097/kg⁵, and orris butter works out to US$24,095/kg³. The first two prices come from Perfumer's Apprentice. The orris figure is 10ML arithmetic on Eden Botanicals' catalogue.

The spread is wide. Of the materials sold by weight in the two tables below, orris butter is the dearest per kilo. Per kilo, it costs more than two hundred times as much as Iso E Super on a perfumer's list.

Synthetics are sold by weight, so the first table reads per kilo. Several naturals are sold by volume, in 4 oz, 16 oz or 30ml bottles, so the second table gives those per ml. Materials the catalogue sells by weight, such as orris butter, vetiver, bergamot and patchouli, stay per kilo. 10ML did not assume a density to turn one unit into the other.

No single list prices every perfumery material. So orris butter is the dearest material per kilo in 10ML's check, not in the whole market. A full ranking would need one price list that covers every material in the same unit, and none of the lists we read does.

This page is one part of 10ML's perfume market and prices research, which follows the money in perfume from the house to the price per ml you pay.

The workhorse molecules: Iso E Super, Hedione and musks

Iso E Super, Hedione and Galaxolide each cost US$95/kg¹ in a 1 kg pack from Perfumer's Apprentice, less than ten US cents a gram. They are the lowest 1 kg prices 10ML read.

Iso E Super is IFF's soft, woody molecule, and Perfumer's Apprentice lists it at US$95/kg¹ for 1 kg. Hedione is an airy, transparent floral molecule, listed at US$95/kg² for 1 kg on the same list. Galaxolide, a clean musk sold there as Musk G, is listed at US$95/kg⁶ for 1 kg.

Not every synthetic is priced that low. Ethyl maltol, a sweet crystal that smells of caramelised sugar, is a little dearer at US$107/kg⁷ for 1 kg on Perfumer's Apprentice's list. Calone, a marine molecule, works out to US$886/kg⁸ from a 500 g pack, 10ML arithmetic on the same list. Per kilo, that is more than nine times the price of Iso E Super.

Molecules like these are made by chemical synthesis rather than harvested from a crop. Their supply does not hang on a harvest. The list price shows the result, not the cost of making them, and no supplier on our lists publishes that cost.

A low price per kilo is not a small role. These are materials a formula can use generously. The rare naturals further down this page are where a perfumer counts drops.

Ambroxan and the amber molecules

Ambroxan costs US$1,097/kg⁵ and Ambrox DL US$1,247/kg⁹ in a 1 kg pack on Perfumer's Apprentice's list, more than ten times the price of Iso E Super.

Both are amber molecules: dry, warm and faintly salty materials that fill the role natural ambergris once filled. Ambroxan on this list is sold as crystals. Ambrox DL comes from a different maker, and on the same list it costs a little more than Ambroxan.

They still sit far below the rarest naturals. Per kilo, orris butter on Eden Botanicals' catalogue costs more than twenty times as much as Ambroxan on Perfumer's Apprentice's list. It costs nearly twenty times as much as Ambrox DL.

Natural ambergris is on neither list 10ML read, and perfumers often buy it as a low-strength tincture by the ml. That price does not sit on the same scale as a kilo of crystals, so this page does not quote one. The difference between the two materials, and the perfumes built on each, is set out in ambergris vs ambroxan, explained. The ambroxan note page gathers the perfumes that list it in their notes.

Oud, orris and rose: the naturals priced per ml

Natural rarities cost more per ml than many finished perfumes: Eden Botanicals' agarwood oil works out to US$25.40/ml³ and Turkish rose otto to US$35.10/ml³. Both are 10ML arithmetic on the price of a 4 oz bottle.

Agarwood (oud) oil

The agarwood oil on Eden Botanicals' catalogue is distilled from Aquilaria crassna grown in Vietnam. The catalogue sells it by volume, so 10ML gives the price per ml. A price per kilo, the figure people search as the 1 kg oud price, would need the oil's density. The catalogue does not state it, so 10ML does not print one.

Why is oud so expensive? A price list cannot say. Harvest, yield and processing costs are not on it. What would answer the question is a producer's yield and cost breakdown, which neither list publishes. What oud is, and how it smells, is covered in what oud is and where it comes from and on the agarwood oud note page.

Orris butter

Orris is made from the root of the iris. Eden Botanicals sells orris butter with 15% irones by weight, in a 50 g pack. 10ML arithmetic on that pack gives US$24,095/kg³. That makes orris butter the dearest material per kilo in 10ML's check. More on the material is in what iris smells like and on the iris note page.

Rose otto and rose absolute

Rose otto is distilled with steam, and rose absolute is extracted with a solvent. On Eden Botanicals' catalogue, Turkish rose otto works out to US$35.10/ml³ and Bulgarian rose absolute to US$10.34/ml³. The otto costs more than three times as much per ml. Among the materials 10ML checked that are sold by volume, rose otto is the dearest per ml. The rose note page and rose perfumes grouped by the note beside the rose show how it is worn.

Vanilla and jasmine absolutes

Vanilla absolute from Madagascar works out to US$14.60/ml³ from a 30ml bottle on Eden Botanicals' catalogue. Jasmine grandiflorum absolute from India works out to US$6.92/ml³ from a 16 oz bottle on the same catalogue. Both are 10ML arithmetic. The vanilla note page gathers the perfumes that list it.

Rose otto, agarwood oil, vanilla absolute and Bulgarian rose absolute each cost more per ml than the median decant at 10ML. The section on why a raw material can cost more than the perfume explains how that works.

Woods, roots and citrus: the everyday naturals

Vetiver from Java costs US$857.50/kg³ and cold-pressed bergamot US$609/kg³ on Eden Botanicals' catalogue, far below orris butter. Most of the ones sold by the kilo sit in the hundreds of US dollars.

Vetiver

Double-distilled vetiver from Haiti costs US$1,850/kg³ on Eden Botanicals' catalogue. That is more than twice the Java oil on the same list, and the one material sold by the kilo in this group above a thousand US dollars. The vetiver note page and what vetiver smells like cover the root itself.

Patchouli

Light patchouli costs US$435/kg³ and dark patchouli US$339/kg³ on Eden Botanicals' catalogue. On this list the light grade is the dearer of the two. The patchouli note page collects the perfumes that carry it.

Bergamot

Cold-pressed bergamot costs US$609/kg³ and furocoumarin-free bergamot (FCF) US$624/kg³ on Eden Botanicals' catalogue. The FCF grade costs a little more. Perfumers often choose it because IFRA standards limit furocoumarins in products left on skin. The bergamot note page has more.

Sandalwood

Wild Australian sandalwood works out to US$3.41/ml³ and Santalum album grown on Australian plantations to US$4.88/ml³, both from 16 oz bottles on Eden Botanicals' catalogue. The plantation-grown album oil is the dearer of the two per ml. People search for the Australian sandalwood price per kg, but the catalogue sells these oils by volume. A kilo price would need a density the list does not give, so 10ML keeps them per ml. See the sandalwood note page and what sandalwood smells like.

Why a raw material can cost more per ml than the perfume

A perfume is mostly alcohol, and the rarest naturals are dosed in small amounts, so a material's price per ml says little about the bottle's. The median 10ml decant at 10ML costs €3.05/ml⁴ per ml, as a 10ML member price, VAT included, measured across the perfumes 10ML stocks.

The 10ML Price-per-ml Index puts the median 3ml decant at €3.60/ml⁴ and the median 30ml decant at €2.57/ml⁴. Both are 10ML member prices, VAT included, across the perfumes 10ML stocks. Rose otto, agarwood oil and two more of the naturals in the table above each cost more per ml on Eden Botanicals' catalogue than the median finished perfume at 10ML in any of the three sizes.

The list prices are in US dollars and the index is in euros. 10ML does not convert between them. The gap is wide enough to read without converting: rose otto and agarwood oil sit at tens of dollars per ml, the median decant at a few euros per ml.

The reason is dilution. A finished perfume is mostly alcohol, with the fragrance concentrate dissolved in it. Inside that concentrate, the rarest naturals are a small part. This page gives no concentration percentages, because no figure in 10ML's registry covers them.

The perfumes below each name one of the priced materials in their notes. You can wear the material inside a finished perfume for the price of a decant.

A note list says a material is in the perfume. It does not say how much. That is why Oud Wood by Tom Ford can list agarwood (oud) and still sell as a decant at €4.93/ml. The same goes for the Turkish rose in Delina by Parfums de Marly and the orris in Gypsy Water by Byredo.

How much of a perfume's price is its raw materials? Perfume houses do not publish that share. The nearest published figure is cost of sales, which at Coty covers materials, bottle, box, production, freight and licence royalties together. 10ML analysis of Coty 10-K fiscal 2025, segment note (SEC)¹⁰ puts cost of sales at 29.4%¹⁰ of Coty's Prestige segment net revenues in the fiscal year to 30 June 2025. Raw materials alone are a smaller part of that, and Coty does not split it out. The rest of the bottle's price is traced in where the money in a bottle of perfume goes, per ml.

At 10ML, the niche median costs more per ml than the median for all perfumes. The median niche 10ml decant at 10ML costs €3.73/ml⁴, 10ML member price, VAT included, measured across the perfumes 10ML stocks. The full comparison is in niche perfume price per ml, measured against designer.

Bulk prices: what changes when you buy by the drum

Pack size matters: on Perfumer's Apprentice's list, Hedione costs US$95/kg² in a 1 kg pack and US$59/kg² in a 50 kg pack. That is more than a third less per kilo for the larger pack.

Iso E Super shows a smaller step. It costs US$95/kg¹ in a 1 kg pack and works out to US$84.60/kg¹ in a 5 kg pack on the same list. That is a little over a tenth less per kilo. Both bulk figures are 10ML arithmetic: the pack price divided by the pack size.

These are still retail prices for perfumers and small producers. Perfume houses and fragrance manufacturers buy on contract prices that are not published. A drum on a public list tells you the direction, not the price a house pays. What would answer that is a published contract price list, and no supplier on our lists releases one.

The same pattern holds for the finished perfume. The 10ML Price-per-ml Index puts the median 30ml decant at €2.57/ml⁴ and the median 3ml decant at €3.60/ml⁴, 10ML member price, VAT included, measured across the perfumes 10ML stocks. The price per ml of trying a scent, from travel sprays to discovery sets, is compared in what it costs per ml to try a perfume.

How 10ML collected these prices

10ML read each price from the supplier's own October 2026 list and converted pack prices to a price per kilo or per ml, without estimating densities. Here is what that covers and what it leaves out.

• What was measured: the list price of one pack of each material, from Perfumer's Apprentice for the synthetics and from Eden Botanicals' essential oil catalogue for the naturals.
• When: both lists were read in October 2026, and each figure carries its source and year in the notes below.
• Units: materials sold by weight are given per kilo, materials sold by volume per ml. Where a figure is marked as 10ML analysis, it is the pack price divided by the pack size.
• Currency: the supplier prices are in US dollars and stay in US dollars. 10ML did not convert them to euros.
• Left out: contract prices paid by houses, which are not published; natural ambergris, which neither list carries; shipping and any tax on the supplier's side; and the share of each material inside a finished perfume, which no house publishes.

The perfume prices on this page come from the 10ML Price-per-ml Index. It is live and recomputed at least every hour from the catalogue. Every figure is a 10ML member price, VAT included, across the perfumes 10ML stocks. Those perfumes are a curated selection that leans towards well-known and recent launches and holds more niche houses than the market does, so the medians describe 10ML's shelf, not the whole market. Niche or designer follows the catalogue's niche collection. The full method is on the 10ML Price-per-ml Index page, and the rest of the series sits in 10ML's perfume market and prices research.