Creed is one of the most expensive perfume brands out there, offering enticing and potent scents that stick around all day, so their massive market demand makes sense. But why is creed cologne so expensive?
Creed cologne is so expensive because it has been using the rarest ingredients for centuries to create unique and exotic scents. Their perfumes and glass bottles are all handmade, and they uphold strict manufacturing standards to ensure premium quality.
A 1.7-ounce (50 ml) bottle of Creed cologne currently sits well above $400 and continues to go up in value with time. This article takes a close look at each factor having a significant impact on Creed’s high price. Keep reading!
Creed Cologne Uses Rare Ingredients
High-quality products are made with high-quality ingredients, and it also happens to be the case with Creed colognes. The brand uses some of the rarest ingredients to concoct its unique fragrances.
Creed dispatches a team of professionals to different countries worldwide to gather exotic ingredients. The aim is to find aromas that no other manufacturer uses. Since the ingredients are so rare, they’re expensive to process and harvest.
For example, creeds best seller Aventus combines the highest quality ingredients using top notes of bergamot and pineapple with middle notes of apple, rose, and dry birch.
If there are no sellers available, Creed has to send a larger team of experts to harvest and gather the ingredients from the area. The next step is to process the ingredients and see if they end up close to the target scent.
Running out of ingredients is also a risk factor to keep in mind during processing, experimenting, and manufacturing. Once a new cologne formula is approved and ready for production in higher volumes, they have to harvest and buy more ingredients.
Ultimately, the consumer has to pay for all of these expenses. It all adds to the final selling price of Creed’s premium cologne bottles. The company also uses the funds to expand its reach into more distant countries, searching for even rarer ingredients for new cologne products.
Creed Cologne Is Handmade
Another reason behind Creed cologne’s high price is that the company doesn’t use machines to mix and harvest essential oils that go into their products. It’s completely handmade, meaning hours of skilled labor of finding, extracting, processing, and mixing ingredients.
The company believes that it’s impossible to preserve the highest possible potency of exotic fragrances without the delicacy of human hands.
However, opting to stay away from machinery slows things down—and that’s also the case with Creed’s cologne production. Their manufacturing rate is significantly slower than the industry average since most manufacturers use efficient machinery in technologically advanced factories.
The slow production process drives their product price up since the supply remains extremely limited throughout the year. At the same time, the demand for their premium-quality colognes only seems to go up with time. There’s always a shortage in the market for Creed colognes, which is a natural determinant for its high price.
Moreover, since skilled labor hours are typically costlier than hourly machine overheads, production costs are higher. Like any other business, the cost of wages ultimately reflects on the product’s selling price—another reason why Creed is so expensive.
Creed Makes Premium Colognes for Celebrities and Royalties
Established in 1760, Creed has been around for over two and a half centuries. They’ve got a vibrant history of producing fragrances, and most of their core methodologies are still the same as they were back in the day. Their same classic practices and unmatched expertise in the field of fragrances are the secrets behind the value of their products.
After all, Creed has made not only premium colognes for celebrities but also kings and queens. The brand has also been awarded several Royal Warrants “for their dedication to providing fragrances to royal houses across Europe.”
The brand’s legacy is too rich for their products to be “budget-friendly” or cheap. Their level of expertise and the sheer commitment to deliver nothing but the best understandably comes at a very high price.
Each Creed Cologne Glass Bottle Is Handcrafted
Creed colognes aren’t just scents; they aim to offer an entire experience—and it has to be as premium as possible. Besides making no compromises on the ingredient quality, Creed also achieves this by upholding strict standards for their bottling.
Each glass bottle is handcrafted by a skilled glassmaker from Pochet du Courval—industry leaders in the beauty and fragrance industry and the most famous glassmaker in France. They’re responsible for studying each fragrance from Creed and coming up with a bottle design that perfectly fits the fragrance’s character.
As you can tell, these services aren’t cheap—and those high charges end up reflecting on the price of Creed colognes.
Creed’s Production Is Limited
Due to several limiting factors, Creed cannot produce its products in abundance. They’re limited by the scarcity of their rare ingredients and the fact that they don’t use machinery in production. Carrying out significant manufacturing steps by hand significantly slows down the process.
Due to these factors, the brand only produces a few bottles of each of its cologne products on a daily basis. The scarcity of ingredients doesn’t help either.
Besides these reasons, Creed also has personal interests in keeping their supply limited. Their market dynamics are such that if they produced their colognes at a faster rate, the brand would eventually lose its value. Due to a limited supply, their price remains stable (and even continues to grow) since there’s never enough volume to meet the market demand.
Creed has stuck to its intimate, unique, and evidently slow manufacturing procedures for centuries. Hence, they can control the limited number of products they put out annually. Not only does it preserve the brand’s “hard to get” image, but it also keeps the price up in the sky.
The Value of Creed Cologne May Increase With Time
Creed’s colognes have a solid and centuries-long history of appreciating with age, just like fine wine. The older a cologne bottle is, the more expensive it sells for. Some preserved older Creed bottles have a higher value than the official price of buying the same cologne brand new.
Unlike wine, the cologne doesn’t offer an improved quality or potency with age, but it’s because of its “collectible” nature. The older the cologne is, the fewer of its bottles would be in circulation, driving the price up thanks to the enthusiasm of passionate collectors.
Creed Is a Luxury Product That Targets the Rich
The last factor in this article—Creed’s brand value—comes from combining all of the above reasons. Not only do they market themselves as a premium brand, but their production methods, quality standards, and their overall business decisions scream luxury. And with all of that comes a heavy price tag—and rightfully so.
Creed cologne is certainly not a need; it’s a luxury product, and that too, of the highest possible quality, and its buyers are some of the world’s richest folks. So, the question “why is Creed so expensive?” is essentially irrelevant to the brand’s target demographic.
Conclusion
Premium quality has always worn a high price tag, and that’s true for every industry in the world. In the realm of scents, Creed is the place for absolutely no compromises on quality.
They’ve been around for over 250 years and have produced scents for kings, queens, and many royal houses in Europe.
Now, their colognes are a jewel of pride for celebrities and millionaires. But the high price doesn’t just come from the fact that the Creed brand name is a massive status symbol. They use costly materials and follow strict production policies that inevitably make their products pricey.
