What Sized Fragrance Should You Buy (Get The Best Deal)

There are many different sized bottles of fragrance. As you can imagine, they all have a different cost to them, but what is the best size to go with?

What is the best-sized fragrance bottle to purchase? The general rule for purchasing a bottle of fragrance is that the bigger it is, the less cost per spray. That is why you should if you are sure that you like a certain fragrance, go with a bigger bottle, as it will cost you less in the long run.

However, you shouldn’t always just go with the biggest bottle you can find. There are some things to consider when buying a bottle of fragrance.

Getting The Right Size

Fragrances are usually not that cheap. A single bottle can already cost you a hundred dollars or more. Of course, not all of them are expensive, but a bunch of the more commonly known ones will cost you a bit. These costs are of course worth it because having a great fitting fragrance is something that can really set you apart and help you make good first impressions.

All these amazing fragrances are bought in different bottle sizes. The most common ones are 50ml and 100ml, although there are way bigger bottles, some being even as big as 250ml.

When you want to get yourself a new fragrance, it is important to know what role this fragrance will play. If the fragrance in question will be your signature scent for the upcoming summer, you might want to go with a bigger bottle. If the fragrance, however, will only be worn during a few specific situations, you might want to go with a smaller one.

So how do you know how big these bottles actually are? This is very simple. You can actually find this information on either the bottle itself or on the box it comes with. Now, this can tell you a few different measurements, being mL, or milliliter, fl oz, FL. OZ., meaning fluid ounce.

There is a small difference in the two types of fluid ounces. Sometimes, you’ll see that your bottle is 3.4 US FL. OZ., or 3.4 UK FL. OZ. The difference between the American fluid ounce and the fluid ounce from the United Kingdom is very small. 3.4 US fluid ounce is equivalent to 100.55mL, where 3.4 UK fluid ounce is equivalent to 96.60 mL. Ultimately, this will make the difference of only a few sprays.

A list of often seen bottle sizes for fragrances are:

• 125 mL, or 4.2 fluid ounces
• 100 mL, or 3.4 fluid ounces
• 50 Ml, or 1.7 fluid ounces

But there are many more sizes in between these. They can be:

• 90 mL, or 3 fluid ounces
• 80 mL, or 2.7 fluid ounces
• 75 mL, or 2.5 fluid ounces
• 60 mL, or 2 fluid ounces
• 40 mL, or 1.4 fluid ounces
• 30 mL, or 1 fluid ounce
• 25 mL, or 0.8 fluid ounces
• 15 mL, or 0.5 fluid ounces
• 5 mL, or 0.17 fluid ounces
• 1.5 mL, or 0.05 fluid ounces

Many of these sizes are very uncommon, but some brands do use them. Some of the smaller ones are often used for samples or travel-sized bottles.

The smallest bottle sizes should be purchased when you’re thinking of buying a fragrance and you just want to try it out and see how the fragrance works with your skin and to see if it suits you.

Another use of the smaller bottles is that they are perfect for when you’re traveling. Airplanes do not even allow bottles bigger than 100mL, but most of the times you don’t even need that much anyways. If you’re going on a vacation for, say, two weeks, there is no need to bring a 100mL bottle. Instead, go with a 5 to 15mL bottle. These contain enough sprays to last you during the trip and won’t take up much space.

The bottles from 50mL to 100mL are the bottles you’ll be buying the most when you’re going for a general fragrance. These contain enough sprays to last you a good while.

How Many Sprays Do These Bottles Actually Contain And What Is Their Best Use

There are many different sizes of fragrance bottles, but how many sprays do these actually contain?

What you can see here is that for every 1mL, you have 10 sprays.

The 1.5mL bottles are standard sample sizes. So when you ask for a free sample at a department store, you can expect up to 15 sprays. This will make it so that you can test the fragrance on multiple days.

The other smaller bottles, like the 5mL or 10mL are pretty good travel sized bottles. If you use around 4 sprays a day, a 5mL bottle will last you around 12 days. This makes it a perfect sized bottle for small trips. For longer trips, you should get bigger bottles.

All these fragrance bottles have their own use, but generally speaking, you should go for the bigger bottles. The price difference between a 50mL bottle and a 100mL bottle are not that big. Especially if you factor in that you get double the amount of actual fragrance. That is why getting the bigger bottles is usually a cheaper option, even though there is a larger upfront cost. In the long run, it will save you some money.

This is also why you sometimes see a certain fragrance for a way cheaper price. People will actually buy the largest available bottle of fragrance and make decants of it. This basically means that someone divides the large fragrance bottle into multiple smaller ones, which can be sold for a lower price than usual. So instead of buying 10 50mL bottles, the person will buy 2 250mL bottles, which is a lot cheaper.

Price Comparison Of A Few Fragrances

To give you a clear view of how the actual price difference, as cost per spray.

For this example, I’ll use Creed Aventus. This fragrance is a very popular one with a high price tag.

A 50mL bottle of Creed Aventus is listed on their website for $325. In a 50mL bottle, you can expect around 500 sprays. If you divide the $325 with the 500 sprays, you’ll have a cost per spray of $0,65.

A 100mL bottle of Creed Aventus is listed on their website for $435. In a 100mL bottle, you can expect around 1000 sprays. If you divide the $435 with the 1000 sprays, you’ll have a cost per spray of $0,44.

A 250mL bottle of Creed Aventus is listed on their website for $670. In a 250mL bottle, you can expect around 2500 sprays. If you divide the $670 with the 2500 sprays, you’ll have a cost per spray of $0,27.

As you can see, the bigger the bottle, the lower the actual cost per spray. When you’re doubling the fragrance juice from 50mL to 100mL, you basically save yourself a good $105, which is definitely not bad.

This, of course, is also the case with cheaper fragrances. Only the original cost per spray will be a lot lower than with Creed Aventus. You might not save yourself $105, but you will definitively save yourself some money.

Things To Keep In Mind While Getting A New Bottle

The first thing to ask yourself is, what is the purpose of this fragrance. Do you need a great fragrance to wear in the summer? Or do you need an easy to wear fragrance for some specific occasions? The purpose of the fragrance should be the biggest factor when considering which size bottle to get. If you only need the fragrance a few times a year, go with a smaller bottle. No need to go with a big one if you won’t even use it that often.

But if the fragrance will be one of your top summer picks, a bigger bottle might be a better idea.

Also, when you’re blind buying fragrances, you should probably go with the smaller bottles. In that case, if you don’t like the fragrance, you only have a little. And if you do like the fragrance, your next bottle can be a larger one.

Even if you’ve gone to an actual store and tested the fragrance, wait a bit before buying a large bottle. You shouldn’t judge a fragrance only by its top notes. Give it some time and see if you like it, then go buy the bottle.

And lastly, you shouldn’t go out there and buy the biggest bottle available. There are some ridiculously big bottles, like 500mL or even bigger. These are insanely expensive and you shouldn’t get those. Even if the cost per spray is a lot lower, you’ll have so much of that one fragrance, you’ll probably get sick of it, or it starts to go bad. In my opinion, you should stick to the 150mL or lower, these have the most use.

Why You Should Get The Right Bottle Size

Getting the right size is actually quite important. Getting small bottles can end up costing you a lot more. The smaller bottles are usually priced quite high when compared to the bigger bottles. The cost per spray will get lower when you purchase bigger bottles.

On the other hand, the bigger bottles, like 500mL, are also not really a good option. When you have 500mL of one fragrance, you’ll probably get really tired of it after a while. 500mL is equal to around 5000 sprays. Unless you only want to have one scent and wear it every day, you should probably go with a smaller bottle.

The bigger bottles also have a chance of going bad after a while. Although fragrances don’t really go bad when you take care of them the right way, having multiple huge bottles can cause some to go bad. Because the bigger the bottle, the longer it will stick around, and the more time it has to go bad.

So if you buy a 1000mL bottle and it goes bad, you’re practically wasting money again. Which is the main reason to purchase the right bottle size, saving some money.

Conclusion

Buying the right sized fragrance bottle is really all about avoiding some unnecessary spending. Smaller bottles usually tend to have a higher cost per spray, where the really large bottles will just be unnecessarily large.

It really comes down to your own judgment. How often will you use this fragrance? And what is the main purpose of it? Is it meant to be taken with you on your travels or just as a good fragrance for a particular season? Then decide which size you’re going for!