Rosy Head Count
This is my classmate from Poland visiting the rose fields extraction plant near Grasse, France. She's sitting in this big drums, and ecstatic to be surrounded by soft, plush, freshly-picked rose-flowers..
Did you know that to make 600gr of rose absolute, 400kg of flowers need to be picked? That is exactly 200,000 roses - all handpicked within 2 hrs every morning in the short 2-week season of rose harvest!
In case you were wondering why natural perfumes cost as much as they do, this should give you some idea. And to put it into smaller scale that you will be able to understand: A single drop of rose oil costs. In Roses et Chocolat, one of my top-selling rosy perfumes, there is 0.3gr of rose absolutes, which means at least 100 roses were picked in order for me to be able to make each 15ml bottle of Roses et Chocolat.
P.s. If financial value speaks to you more clearly: please know that in this formula, the roses alone accounts for about $7 per 15ml aka 0.25oz bottle on account of roses alone.
In most perfumes you'll find in the market come in a 50ml aka 1.7oz bottle - they don't even spend as much on the jus (the most that is spent on any jus is about $5 - the rest of what you're paying for is marketing, distribution and many other things that don't contribute at all to your perfume enjoyment.
If I were to sell this size (1.7oz), it will cost me 8 times (aka $40 or more) then what they are paying for (and not including bottle, label, packaging or labour). And of course I wouldn't be making any profit whatsoever if I were to sell it for the average $50 or so which is the going price for 50ml fragrances.