EDT vs EDP vs Parfum: What the Percentages Mean

Pick up two perfume bottles from different brands and you'll often see two completely different labelling systems. One says "Eau de Parfum" on the front. Another just says "fragrance" or "natural spray" and leaves you guessing. The difference isn't marketing fluff. It comes down to a percentage of perfume oil, and that percentage decides how strong the scent is, how long it lasts on your skin, and whether a small bottle is actually good value or not.

What the percentages actually mean

Perfume is a mix of aromatic compounds (the actual scent) diluted in alcohol and a small amount of water. The more aromatic compound in the mix, the stronger and longer-lasting the fragrance, and the more expensive it usually is to produce. The industry doesn't work to a single legal standard, but these are the generally accepted ranges you'll see used by most perfume houses:

• Parfum or Extrait de Parfum: roughly 20 to 30% aromatic compound. The strongest and most expensive tier, typically sold in small bottles because you need very little.
• Eau de Parfum (EDP): roughly 15 to 20%. This is the middle ground most people reach for as an everyday fragrance.
• Eau de Toilette (EDT): roughly 5 to 15%. Lighter, fresher, and usually the entry point for a fragrance range.
• Eau de Cologne (EDC): roughly 2 to 4%. Very light, designed to be topped up through the day rather than worn once.

Those ranges overlap between brands, which is why two EDPs from different houses can smell noticeably different in strength. The percentage tells you roughly what to expect, not an exact number you can rely on across every bottle you own.

Why some bottles skip the label altogether

Not every perfume house uses the EDT/EDP system. Several smaller and boutique brands, including some of the British-made scents in our perfume and fragrance collection, simply call the product "fragrance" or "natural spray fragrance" and let the notes and the price per millilitre do the talking instead. This isn't a labelling shortcut to hide a lower concentration. It's usually the opposite: a small-batch perfumer blending at a strength that suits the specific scent rather than forcing it into a standard category. If the label doesn't say EDT or EDP, read the product description for clues about staying power (words like "long-lasting" or a warning that "two sprays is plenty" usually mean you're dealing with something closer to parfum strength) rather than assuming it's weak because it isn't labelled.

How long each strength actually lasts

As a rough guide, an EDC will fade within one to two hours, an EDT typically lasts three to five hours, an EDP will often still be noticeable after six to eight hours, and a parfum can last a full day on skin, sometimes longer on clothing and hair. Skin type, body temperature and even the weather all affect this, so treat these as starting points rather than guarantees. Citrus and green notes (grass, mandarin, bergamot) are more volatile and fade faster regardless of concentration, while woods, musks and resins like oud sit on skin for far longer. That's worth knowing before you judge a fragrance as "weak" an hour after spraying it: some notes are simply built to fade first.

10ml purse spray or a full 100ml bottle: which to buy

Most fragrance houses sell a small purse or travel spray alongside the full-size bottle, and the two aren't just different sizes of the same decision. A 10ml purse spray is the sensible way to trial a scent for a few weeks before committing to a full bottle, and it's small enough to top up during the day without carrying the full bottle around. It also has a practical travel advantage: at 10ml it sits comfortably within hand luggage liquid rules without eating into your 100ml allowance the way a full bottle would, so it's worth keeping one in your bag if you're heading through airport security, and our travel and luggage collection has cabin-friendly bags sized to fit one alongside your usual toiletries. A 100ml bottle, on the other hand, works out cheaper per millilitre once you know you'll wear a scent regularly, which is why committed fans of a fragrance usually end up buying both sizes: the small one for the bag, the large one for the dressing table.

Getting more from whatever strength you buy

Concentration only tells part of the story. How you apply a fragrance changes how long it lasts almost as much as the percentage on the bottle. Spray onto pulse points (wrists, the base of the throat, behind the ears) rather than clothing, since skin warmth is what releases the scent gradually through the day. Moisturised skin also holds fragrance noticeably better than dry skin, because dry skin has less to grip onto, so a fragrance-free body lotion applied first genuinely extends wear time. It's a good reason to build fragrance into the same few minutes as the rest of your routine rather than an afterthought sprayed on the way out the door; our beauty and personal care collection has unscented moisturisers that won't compete with or dull whatever you're wearing on top.

Storing it so it doesn't fade before you've finished the bottle

Heat, light and humidity all break down the aromatic compounds in perfume over time, which is exactly what a bathroom windowsill or a steamy shower shelf provides in abundance. A cool, dark drawer or a bedroom dressing table out of direct sunlight will keep a bottle in good condition for years rather than months. If your bathroom cabinet is already where your skincare lives, it's worth moving fragrance out of it specifically, while the rest of your skincare collection is generally fine to stay put since most of those formulas are designed to cope with bathroom humidity in a way alcohol-based perfume isn't. Keep the cap on tightly between uses too. Every time a bottle is left open, a small amount of alcohol evaporates and the balance of the fragrance shifts slightly, which is part of why an old bottle can smell subtly different from when you first bought it.

The short version

The percentage on the label (where there is one) tells you roughly how strong and how long-lasting a fragrance will be, not how good it is. A lighter EDT applied to moisturised skin can easily outlast a parfum sprayed onto dry skin and forgotten about. Start with a small size if you're unsure about a scent, apply it to skin rather than clothes, and keep the bottle somewhere cool and dark. Those three habits will do more for how a fragrance performs than chasing a specific percentage ever will.