Three issues are involved in selecting a bottle — design, capacity, and type of closure that will be used. You might add a fourth choice, glass or plastic, but glass will almost certainly be your choice for a perfume bottle in spite of its greater cost and weight.
Can you make use of a stock bottle or will you require a custom design? There are three considerations — cost, aesthetics, and brand identity. Custom bottles require design services and then, to produce the design, a certain minimum order. Using European sources the minimum cost for a custom bottle might run around $100,000. Using Chinese sources the cost might be somewhat less but there can be communications problems and the risks of a costly misunderstanding.
There are considerable savings from using a stock bottle. You avoid the design and die costs of a custom bottle and the cost of a substantial minimum order. Stock bottles are available in a large variety of sizes and shapes and can generally be ordered by the case which, for perfume bottles, may range from about 100 to 400 bottles, depending on bottle size and packing. You will typically encounter a minimum order size but for a stock bottle it is likely to be in the hundreds rather than tens of thousands or dollars.
Stock bottles can satisfy the aesthetic senses of most smaller fragrance marketers. (After considering the cost of a custom bottle, stock bottles begin to look very good!) If, however, after looking at hundreds of stock bottles and finding nothing to suit your aesthetic tastes, finding an experienced package design professional and working with them to produce a custom bottle may be your best solution — if you have the money.
If you intend to use your bottle as a branding tool, you will almost certainly require a custom design. Otherwise you risk finding that someone else is using the same bottle. And, with your custom design in hand, you'll want to register a design trademark, just in case.
Bottles come in all sizes. How many ounces or milliliters of fragrance do you want to deliver? Smaller bottles — 1 ounce / 30 milliliters or less — tend to be less expensive than larger bottles. On some smaller bottles (non-rectilinear) the shape obscures the smaller volume of contents. In other cases the consumer expects the bottle to have a certain capacity such as 3.7 or 1.7 ounces or 100 milliliters.
As bottle size increases not only does the cost of the bottle generally increase (unless you hit on a particularly popular shape where volume production has driven down the price), a larger bottle also means a greater cost to fill it — more fragrance oil, more alcohol per bottle — plus a greater shipping cost. Glass is heavy. Larger bottles weigh more than smaller bottles. Twice the size means twice the shipping weight.
Your first decision here is, "cap or pump?" Will you simply close the bottle with a cap — a cheap solution — or will you close the bottle with a spray pump, a more expensive solution but one generally favored by consumers.
If you decide to use a simple cap to close your bottle rather than a spray pump, your first limitation is that the bottle must have a threaded "finish" (neck) that will allow you to screw on the cap. The thread of the cap you select must match the tread of the bottle to make a proper seal.
Next you confront the issue of whether or not the bottle has a "sprinkler" neck ("finish"). A sprinkler neck is one with a smaller opening at the top, considerably smaller than the neck's diameter, so that the fragrance is "splashed" out of the bottle rather than dumped in a flood.
If you select a threaded neck bottle for a cap and the bottles does not have a sprinkler neck you can use a plastic orifice reducing plug to decrease the opening at the neck of your bottle. The plug must be the correct size to fit into the neck of your bottle and the orifice opening must be an appropriate size to dispense your fragrance.
If you are filling and closing your bottles yourself you must use a threaded neck bottle and a threaded pump. Threaded pumps are generally available in gold or silver finish but beyond that (with the exception of those developed for plastic bottles) they all look alike.
If you select a bottle that accepts either a crimp-type or a press-on pump, you will find many more choices available in a stock bottle as well as more variety in the looks of the pumps that will be available to you.
There are, however, two issues you'll confront when using crimp or press-on pumps. First, your bottles must be filled and sealed by special machinery. Thus you must take your perfume to a "filling house" (also called a "contract packager") to have your filling and assembly work done. You won't be able to do it yourself.
Second, you must find a cap (overshell) to go over the pump. Sometimes the pump supplier can provide a matching cap. Sometimes you may have to — or you many want to — have a custom cap designed and manufactured for your pump to give your bottle a more stylish look. In this second case getting a proper fit will be very important.
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Stainless Steel Funnels for Kitchen: These stainless steel funnels are made of food grade stainless steel, non-toxic and sturdy. Premium material makes these small funnels have a long usage time and resists breaking, bending, scratching, rusting. Each Stainless Steel funnel has a perfectly narrow stem, ideal for filling small bottles and containers while keeping the kitchen counter free from spills. Each funnel's stem is equipped with an indent (air release channel), which allows funnels to vent and allows contents to flow better. Perfect for adding salt, pepper, herbs or spices into shakers or jars; transferring oils and vinegars into cruets or small decorative bottles for gifts; adding powdered drink mixes into water bottles and much more.
How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfumeHomemade perfumes generally lack commercial value, regardless of how wonderful they may be, because their creators fail to record how their perfumes were made. To profit from a perfume, to sell it, to sell the rights to it, or have somebody sell it for you, you must be able to make more of it. To make more you need the formula, the record of how the perfume was made: what materials were used and how much of each material was used. While the formula is nothing more than a recipe, a simple piece of paper, it is the key to unlocking your perfume's commercial potential. With the formula in your hand you have the ability to make a few dozen bottles more or, like the celebrities, tens of thousands of bottles. How to create an international production formula for your homemade perfume is a guide to getting you started on the right foot, correctly documenting everything you do as you are doing it, and then using these notes with some basic mathematics to write a simple, accurate, universal formula for your perfume. Writing formulas for your perfumes can change the way you think about them. With your formulas in hand your creations are no longer "here today, gone tomorrow." Now, thanks to your library of formulas, your perfumes become immortal!
Making Perfume By The Quart: A do-it-yourself project bookWhile much is written about perfume – the beautiful fragrances... the beautiful bottles – little is available on the "mechanics" of perfume production – the steps that take place on the "factory floor" where a beautiful vision is turned into a finished product, a "ready to sell" perfume. Now you can experience all of these steps, hands on, by making just one quart of your own perfume. If you follow each chapter and do what you are instructed to do, you will end up with from 8 to 64 bottles of your own perfume, depending on the capacity of the bottles you select. Along this "insiders journey," each step is profusely illustrated with professional color photographs and you'll learn — • Exactly what alcohol you'll need and where to get it • Why you'll want (just a little!) water in your perfume • What type bottles you'll need and why you cannot use others • Why you will use a spray and not a cap • How to fill and seal your bottles • How to label your bottles with the correct information so they will be legal for sale • How to select a name for your perfume that will allow you to acquire powerful trademark rights free. If you are a developer of scents you are encouraged to use one of your own for this project. If you are not a scent creator yourself you'll learn how to get a fragrance oil that is exactly right for this project. Online sources are given for all required supplies and materials. Nothing can hold you back from starting your project immediately!
Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup! (3rd edition)Perfume is famous for the markup it can achieve, even for a middle market fragrance. While "everybody knows" that perfume costs next to nothing to make (not completely true) the making of it is often considered an esoteric secret. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" details how a 3-person company with no experience created their own fragrance in response to a marketing opportunity that was too good to pass up. The book explains exactly what was done to create a fragrance for that opportunity but it is far more than a history of the author's project. "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" lays out every step in the process of creating your own perfume, either as a do-it-yourself project – and without the benefit of automated equipment some compromises and workarounds are required – or full bore professional production under your supervision. Either way you will be producing a quality fragrance at a remarkably low cost. Do you have a marketing opportunity that would be wildly profitable if only you could obtain your fragrance at a ridiculously low cost? "Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!" is the guide you need to do it.
Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles: Methods, mechanics, and mathematicsNow when you make your own perfume you can make it fully "commercial" meaning you will be creating a product ready for regular, continuous sales to friends, relatives, and the public! If the fragrance you've made has already won praise, why not share it with others? Some might pay you for it and want it for their web stores or retail boutiques! Creating your own perfume from dropper bottles: Methods, mechanics, and mathematics guides you through steps that can turn your hobby project into a perfume business. Discover how close you are now and how little more you must do to take what you made with essential oils and dropper bottles into a business of your own! For an introduction to this book, watch this video.
How To Launch Your Own Perfume Company: A Simple Business PlanYou can build a perfume business of your own using this business plan as a guide. By following its detailed strategy you learn to identify motivated groups of potential perfume buyers. Members of these groups are near the tipping point of desire for a new perfume. You don't know these people and they don't know you but you know a marketer they trust, one who does not currently sell perfume and might never think of selling perfume were it not for your approach. Here is where you step in with a professional plan, promotion, and perfume to take advantage of this ripe opportunity for mutual profit. Before your first promotion has peaked, you will already be developing a relationship with your next marketing partner. Following this plan, you will gain more and more profit with each new marketing partnership.
Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your NameA really great name, a special name that is just right for a particular perfume or perfume marketer (or entrepreneur with money to invest!) can be worth a ton of money. But few individuals with great ideas ever manage to cash in on those brilliant ideas. Instead they wait while others "discover" their idea, acquire legal rights to it and make all the money while they are left out in the cold without a penny having been earned for what was once THEIR idea.
If you are struggling to name your perfume and are looking for a name that will have real value, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will help you weed out low value names and point you to names that have better marketing value plus the potential to become valuable assets in themselves.
If you have a great name you want to protect but no fragrance, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" will guide you through the simple steps you must take to acquire a legal right to that name before someone else grabs it! Best of all, "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" shows you how to gain strong legal protection for your name without a lawyer and without spending more than pocket change.
Never had an idea for a product name? Never thought much about perfume? "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Name" may stimulate your interest in a whole new game that, when played well, can make you lots of money without your having to leave the comfort of your home office.
How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your PerfumeWhen you name a perfume you create a valuable asset – the name itself. To sell your perfume you want the most effective name possible. But a good name can have value beyond the edge it gives your sales. In naming your fragrance you are creating a trademark and a trademark can have value independent of the product. The value of that trademark can vary. Much depends on how well, in naming your perfume, you follow the trademark "rules." How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume first helps you develop a name that will be effective in selling your perfume. It then prods you to make use of certain techniques that can turn a good name into a great trademark, strong and valuable. If you have questions about how to protect a name, How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume will answer many such as:
How To Create A More Valuable Name For Your Perfume covers both state, federal, and international protection.
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Philip Goutell
Lightyears, Inc.
Send your question to Umbra!
Q. Dear Umbra,
I am a child of the consumer age, but I try to live by “reuse, recycle.” I have a lot of fancy perfume bottles that are now empty. They are very heavy glass, and it seems I read that the return on the energy spent to melt them down is not worth recycling them. Can you solve this conundrum?
Patricia M.
Seattle, Wash.
A. Dearest Patricia,
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How fancy are we talking? Antiques Road Show fancy? How I would delight in watching one of my readers discover that her glass bottle was in fact a René Lalique bouchons mures bottle circa 1923. Assuming my PBS fantasy is just that (sigh), I’ll guess that your bottles are more contemporary.
First things first: It’s definitely worth it to recycle glass. As we’ve discussed, recycling always wins. Glass doesn’t biodegrade, so we don’t want it in our landfills. And glass recycling actually saves energy compared with using new materials: crushed glass (known as cullet) melts at a lower temperature than virgin ingredients like sand. Perhaps it’ll also ease your mind to know that glass containers produced today are 40 percent lighter than they were 20 years ago, making recycling even less energy-intensive. Your heaviest perfume bottle is probably still lighter than your mother’s were.
However, there’s a pesky catch here: the pumps. I did a little hands-on research at a fragrance counter (perhaps to the chagrin of the salespeople and my sinuses), and sniffed out several different set-ups. Some of the pumps are screw-on, which means you could easily detach the top and refill or recycle the bottle (per my usual advice, check with your local authorities as to whether they’ll accept it). Some without pumps have those dainty little stoppers that pop right out, making for an easy refill or recycle. And then there are the pumps that neither screw off or pop out; after trying it myself, I cannot endorse attempts to pry the pumps off, for fear of ending up with your blood on my hands (a damned spot that even the best NPE-free detergent can’t oust). Instead, perhaps try channeling Martha Stewart by arranging those fancy glass bottles together on a windowsill or bathroom counter for some cheap and easy recycled décor.
Also, while the nearest locale for you, Patricia, is in Portland, all spritzing readers should know: New York perfumer Bond No. 9 and Saks Fifth Avenue have a take-back program that accepts all perfume bottles for refurbishing and refilling or recycling.
In the future, you might avoid perfume purchases altogether if you truly want to avoid the bottle conundrum (and the toxic risks hidden in so many of our cosmetics). I think you smell just fine from here.
Sniffily,
Umbra
Q. Dear Umbra,
After reading your article about ways to store food without using plastic, I started to wonder if wax paper is recyclable. I know that you can’t recycle things with food waste on them, but what about a gently used piece of wax paper?
Crinkle-y,
Ariel
Boston, Mass.
A. Dearest Ariel,
Thanks for the lovely little stroll down Ask Umbra archive lane.
While I generally avoid the “Can I recycle this specific item?” dilemma — only your local recycling program can tell you for sure — I can say that, food stains or not, wax paper contains a generally unrecyclable culprit: wax, which is made from oil. Recovered fiber from regular paper is shredded and mixed with water to make pulp. But in the case of wax paper, oil and water mix about as well as, um, oil and water.
That said, how gently has the wax paper been used? If it’s just looking a little crumb-ridden, by all means, wipe it down and reuse away. Or there could be some DIY-ing in your used wax paper’s future: perhaps a pressed-leaves placemat, book binding repair, or a stained glass butterfly.
Craftily,
Umbra
Q. Hi Umbra,
I just read your response on water bottles and liked the part at the end where you asked the reader if he really needs to buy a water bottle at all. If he does need to tote liquids around (I do), what do you think of this solution environmentally: I tote my water around in the glass jars that pasta sauce, peanut butter, jelly, or olives came in. After using up the product, I just wash them out, and they are a sparkling new water bottle. Most cafes will even fill them up if you stop for a smoothie. My boyfriend even uses these jars for buying hot coffee from cafés. I think this is a little hot to handle, but he swears it’s fine.
Erin
Sacramento, Calif.
A. Dearest Erin,
I like the cut of your jib. And props to your boyfriend for braving the potential for blisters in the name of reuse. Any other ideas for alternative beverage containers out there? Let me know in the comments section.
Hydratedly,
Umbra