The Most Expensive Perfume in the World, According to Guinness

Two bottles compete for the name of the world's most expensive perfume, and Guinness has given them different records. The claim is one of the perfume myths and facts we check.

What is the most expensive perfume in the world?

By the Guinness World Records title, it is Clive Christian No1 (also written No. 1), in a ten-bottle edition called No.1 Imperial Majesty that Guinness dates to November 2005. The edition was priced at $205,000 (£115,000) for 500 ml (17 fl oz). On 23 October 2026, Guinness World Records' page for "Most expensive perfume (commercially available)" still named "Clive Christian No1". Its text names both versions, "the Clive Christian No.1 for Men or No.1 for Women", so the same title answers for men's and women's perfume.

The British house behind it, Clive Christian Perfume, says on its About page that Clive Christian acquired the Crown Perfumery Company in 1999, a company it dates to 1872.

The Dubai claimant holds a different record. Guinness credits Shumukh with the most diamonds set on a perfume bottle: 3,571, presented in Dubai on 12 March 2019. We found no Guinness price record for it.

What made Imperial Majesty so expensive?

Guinness lists three things besides the perfume: a Baccarat crystal flacon, a five-carat white diamond with an 18-carat gold collar, and delivery in a Bentley that the price included. In its words:

The perfume was presented in a Baccarat crystal flacon, decorated with a five-carat white diamond and an 18-carat gold collar.

Guinness World Records, "Most expensive perfume (commercially available)"

Guinness adds that the edition was launched at the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie in Harrods, London, and sold over Christmas there and at Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

Clive Christian's heritage page on Imperial Majesty starts with the perfume: 500 ml of "absolute perfume oil", in a bottle devised with Baccarat's glass blowers. "So precious is the bottle that just ten of them were made," it says; seven went to private collectors, and three tour the world in the house's own collection. The No1 Masculine product page speaks of "222 rare and precious ingredients".

The two accounts disagree on the year: Guinness says November 2005, the house's page "In 2006". We follow Guinness, whose entry gives the month and the shops; a CosmeticsDesign.com trade report of 28 November 2005 already describes the ten flacons. The house's page is a 2022 retelling. None of the three splits the price between the diamond, the crystal, the perfume and the Bentley delivery.

Baccarat's ties to perfume are older. The V&A's label for a Cyclamen scent bottle says the first of René Lalique's bottles for Coty, commissioned in 1908, was for Cyclamen. Its "first production was made at Baccarat".

How much is the world's most expensive perfume?

The Guinness record holder, Clive Christian No1 in its Imperial Majesty edition, cost $205,000 (£115,000) for 500 ml in 2005: $410 (£230) per milliliter, by our arithmetic. At the 2005-era price Guinness gives for the ordinary No1, £1,317 for 30 ml, a milliliter came to about £43.90. Imperial Majesty cost a little over five times as much (our arithmetic).

Per milliliter is also how Shumukh's maker made its case. CNN Travel reported in March 2019 a price of $1,295,000 for three liters, which CNN put at $431.70 per milliliter. It wrote that The Spirit of Dubai was "claiming a world record by this metric".

Two cautions apply. First, the two prices per milliliter are within about 5 percent of each other (our arithmetic). They are dollars of 2005 and 2019, not adjusted for inflation, so they do not settle which perfume cost more.

Second, a claim is not a title. Guinness warns that records "change on a daily basis and are not immediately published online", so the record named here is the one published on 23 October 2026.

Why isn't Shumukh the record holder?

Guinness has not said why Shumukh holds no price title. Shumukh's Guinness record page counts diamonds, not dollars: 3,571 "set on SHUMUKH of The Spirit of Dubai", a bottle designed by Asghar Adam Ali Ibrahim. It gives no price, and CNN's question to Guinness in 2019 went unanswered before publication.

The price came from the launch. Guinness's news story of 11 April 2019 names the maker, Spirit of Dubai Parfums, part of Nabeel Perfumes Group. It says the unisex fragrance "is also described as the world's most expensive at a cost of $1.295 million". On its wheeled pedestal the bottle stands 1.97 m tall, with a sprayer aimed by remote control.

Gulf News's launch report of 13 March 2019 called Shumukh the "world's most expensive perfume" in its headline. Its text, though, noted that the Guinness price record belonged to the Clive Christian No. 1 Collection. It gave Shumukh's value as Dh4.752 million and said Dubai "could very well break another world record".

CNN Travel's report, which says the certificates were shown to CNN, listed two Guinness titles for the bottle: the diamonds, and the tallest commercially available remote-controlled fragrance spray bottle. We found no Guinness record page for the second. CNN also reported that no buyer had been disclosed.

Which source is stronger? On the record, Guinness's own record pages: they are the record keeper's current word, and neither gives Shumukh a price title. The $1.295 million is a launch valuation, repeated by Guinness's news desk and the press.

Another Dubai house has used the superlative. Ajmal's own timeline says its Dahn Al Oudh Moattaq of 1995, at USD 700 for a 12 ml bottle, became "one of the most expensive fragrances in the world". That ranking is the house's own, as our history of Ajmal Perfumes notes.

What does a Guinness perfume record measure?

One thing at a time: each Guinness title rests on a single measured variable. Its rule reads:

The record must focus on a single, clear measurement: fastest, longest, heaviest, most, etc.

Guinness World Records, "What makes a Guinness World Records title?"

Guinness's page on what makes a record title also rules out records "based on opinion, such as 'best', 'most beautiful' or 'most talented'". No perfume can hold a record for smelling best, but a price or a count of diamonds can be measured.

The price record's page sums up the title as "the highest price a perfume is sold commercially ... to the general public", in US dollars. That leaves out DKNY's 2011 bottle in the table above, which CNN Travel says "was not commercially available, instead sold at auction".

Guinness's guide to how records are measured says most are verified from uploaded evidence, and that an adjudicator at the event is "a paid-for service". The Shumukh news story sits under /news/commercial/ in its web address and ends with a pitch to brands. We do not know whether Spirit of Dubai paid for an adjudicator.

None of that makes the 3,571 count less real: each title answers one narrow question, and a launch headline may answer another. Sales are a separate question, taken up in our check of Chanel N°5 (No. 5) and the best-seller claim.

Is Creed the most expensive perfume?

No: Creed's own US prices are a small fraction of the record. On 23 October 2026, Creed Boutique US's page for Aventus listed six sizes, from $270 for 30 ml to $1,900 for 980 ml. That is $9.00 to about $1.94 per milliliter (our arithmetic).

Creed's collector's piece is the Aventus Édition Artisanale, "limited to just 500 editions". It puts a 490 ml flacon, a pipette and a travel atomizer in a trunk, for $1,800. In the store's full product list that day, we found no fragrance above $1,900.

At $410 per milliliter in 2005 dollars, Imperial Majesty cost more than 45 times the dearest milliliter among the six Aventus sizes (our arithmetic, not adjusted for inflation). Clive Christian's UK shop listed no Imperial Majesty that day. Its priciest perfume was the regular No1, at £650 for 50 ml (No1 Masculine product page), far below its 2005-era price.

A price per milliliter is easy to work out; how a perfume wears on your skin is not. How to find your signature scent shows how to test before you buy, and the perfume finder starts from your taste, not a price.