Eau de toilette, eau de parfum, extrait de parfum, parfum, attar. The words appear on bottles as though they mean something precise. They mean something — just less, and less reliably, than most people assume.
Here is what is actually going on.
Concentration, in plain terms
A fragrance is aromatic material dissolved in a carrier. In an alcohol-based perfume, that carrier is ethanol. The category names describe roughly how much aromatic material is in the mixture:
- Eau de Cologne — around 2–5%
- Eau de Toilette — around 5–15%
- Eau de Parfum — around 10–20%
- Extrait de Parfum (also parfum, or pure perfume) — around 15–40%, commonly 20–30%
You will have noticed those ranges overlap. That is not sloppiness on our part. These are conventions, not regulations. In most markets there is no legal definition, no authority checking, and no requirement to disclose. A house can label a 12% composition an eau de parfum and a 16% one an extrait, and nobody will stop them. Some do exactly that.
What concentration does not tell you
Three things, and they are the three things people most often assume it tells them.
It does not tell you quality. Concentration is a quantity, not a standard. Thirty percent of mediocre material is still mediocre material, in greater volume.
It does not reliably tell you longevity. How long a fragrance stays is governed by which molecules are in it — their weight and how readily they evaporate. A citrus eau de parfum at 18% can be gone before a well-constructed eau de toilette at 8%, because the citrus was always going to leave and the base materials were always going to stay. Concentration is one input among several.
It does not tell you strength as you experience it. An extrait is often quieter than the eau de parfum of the same name, not louder — higher concentration frequently means a denser, closer, slower-moving fragrance rather than a bigger one. People expect the opposite and are surprised.
Where attar sits
Outside the scale, mostly.
An attar is oil-based rather than alcohol-based, so the whole framework of percentage-in-ethanol does not map onto it. That does not mean an attar is undiluted — aromatic materials are frequently carried in a base oil, and the proportion varies as widely as it does anywhere else. It only means the labels were built for a different format.
The practical difference is behaviour rather than strength. Alcohol pushes a fragrance outward into the air and then leaves. Oil does not, so the fragrance stays closer to the skin and unfolds more slowly. Neither is superior. They are different ways of occupying space.
What to do with this
Use the label as a rough guide to what a fragrance is trying to be — an eau de toilette is usually built to be brighter and more casual, an extrait denser and more deliberate — and then ignore it and judge the thing itself.
The only test that has ever worked is wearing it for a day.
কনসেন্ট্রেশন বিষয়ে
ইউ ডি টয়লেট, ইউ ডি পারফিউম, এক্সট্রে ডি পারফিউম — এই নামগুলো বোঝায় সুগন্ধি উপাদানের শতকরা পরিমাণ কতটুকু। তবে এগুলো আইনি সংজ্ঞা নয়, কেবল প্রচলিত রীতি — তাই এক হাউসের ইউ ডি পারফিউম অন্য হাউসের এক্সট্রের চেয়েও ঘন হতে পারে।
বেশি কনসেন্ট্রেশন মানেই ভালো বা বেশিক্ষণ স্থায়ী নয়। স্থায়িত্ব নির্ভর করে কোন উপাদান ব্যবহার করা হয়েছে তার উপর। আর আতর তেলভিত্তিক বলে এই শাতকরা হিসাব সরাসরি আতরের ক্ষেত্রে খাটে না।
