Notes & Education · October 12, 2026 · 5 min read
Almost every bottle carries a few letters after its name: EDT, EDP, sometimes Parfum or Extrait. Most shoppers treat these like a strength dial, assuming Parfum always beats EDP, which always beats EDT. We checked that assumption against our own catalog, using the concentration, longevity, and sillage (how far a scent projects) listed for fragrances across every tier. The short version: the letters tell you something real, but a lot less than most people think.
They describe roughly how much fragrance oil is mixed into the alcohol and water, not how good the perfume is. Eau de Cologne sits at the lightest end, Eau de Toilette (EDT) comes next, Eau de Parfum (EDP) carries more oil than that, and Parfum or Extrait de Parfum sits at the richest end. These bands are industry convention, not a law anyone enforces, so two houses can land on different percentages while using the same label. Roughly, and these ranges overlap quite a bit in practice:
| Label | Typical oil content | General idea |
|---|---|---|
| Eau de Cologne | 2 to 5% | Light, meant for frequent reapplication |
| Eau de Toilette (EDT) | 5 to 15% | Everyday strength |
| Eau de Parfum (EDP) | 15 to 20% | Fuller, usually a bit longer lasting |
| Parfum / Extrait | 20% and up | The richest, most concentrated tier |
Higher oil content tends to last longer, but "tends to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The ingredients themselves matter just as much. Musk, amber, and heavy woods can sit on skin for hours at a modest concentration, while bright citrus can fade quickly even at a high one. Our own catalog backs this up in a few places worth pointing out.
Dior Sauvage is an EDT at $105, and it is listed as long lasting (7 to 12 hours) with strong sillage. Xerjoff Erba Pura, an EDP that costs nearly three times as much at $295, is listed as only moderate (4 to 7 hours) with moderate sillage. Same general tier gap, opposite result. Zara's Red Vanilla, also labeled EDP, lands in that same moderate range despite the richer-sounding name on the bottle.
At the top end, Roja Elysium is labeled Parfum and priced at $395, yet our catalog lists it as long lasting (7 to 12 hours), the same band as the much cheaper Sauvage EDT above it. Its stablemate Roja Danger, also a Parfum, does hit very long lasting (12 hours or more), which shows the range inside a single label can be just as wide as the range between labels.
The lightest tier is the one place the pattern held cleanly in our catalog: Jo Malone's Wood Sage & Sea Salt, a Cologne-strength scent, is listed as light (2 to 4 hours) with soft sillage, about what the label would suggest. So the rule is not useless, it is just a loose tendency rather than a guarantee, and it gets less reliable the higher up the concentration scale you go.
It is tempting to assume a pricier bottle must be more concentrated, and that is not reliable either. Club de Nuit Intense Man is an EDT that costs $35 in our catalog and is rated long lasting with strong sillage, the exact same longevity and sillage rating as Creed Aventus, an EDP that costs $395. The ten times higher price buys different ingredients, a different house, and a different reputation. It does not buy a longer-lasting spray, at least not according to the performance details in our own catalog.
On ParfAI, every fragrance page lists its concentration alongside its own longevity and sillage rating, so you do not have to guess from the letters alone. If staying power matters more to you than the name on the label, that is the pair of fields worth reading before price or even brand. A $29 EDT and a $395 EDP can land in the same bucket, and two bottles with the same three letters after their names can land in different ones.
A note on how this was put together: the concentration, longevity, sillage, and price figures above are pulled directly from the ParfAI catalog. The general ranges for what EDT, EDP, Cologne, and Parfum typically mean in oil percentage reflect common industry convention rather than a figure printed on any single bottle, since houses rarely disclose the exact number.
Browse fragrances by family, check any bottle's own longevity and sillage rating on its catalog page, or use our Dupe Finder to compare a favorite against lower-priced alternatives at a glance.