Method
Flacon Index is a record of what fine fragrance costs on Amazon US, kept one day at a time. This page explains where the numbers come from, what we include and leave out, and how to read them.
What we track
We follow a fixed list of fragrances from 35 houses; 150 fragrances from 31 of those houses have bottles on Amazon today. A row in the ledger is one bottle: one fragrance, in one strength and one size, for example Sauvage Eau de Parfum in 100 ml. Amazon often lists that same bottle several times, from Amazon itself, from the brand's own store and from independent sellers. We gather all of those listings under the one bottle, show the lowest current price on the ledger, and list every other listing with its seller on the fragrance's own page.
Where the prices come from
Once a day we read the prices shown on Amazon US for each fragrance, and open each new listing's product page to confirm its size and who sells and ships it. A listing's seller is checked again every two weeks, because the seller winning Amazon's buy box changes over time. Every table on the site shows the date and time of the last check. Prices on Amazon can change at any moment, so the price at checkout is always the one that applies.
What we leave out
We exclude testers, unboxed bottles, samples, minis under 20 ml, gift sets, body products, refills and multi-packs, because none of them is comparable with a full retail bottle. We also exclude “inspired by” scents and dupes, even when their titles name a house. Flankers, such as an Intense, an Elixir or a limited edition, are usually different compositions, so we only list a flanker when we track it as a fragrance of its own, and never fold its price into the original's.
Price per milliliter
A 100 ml bottle at $150 costs $1.50 per ml. A 50 ml bottle of the same scent at $95 costs $1.90 per ml. We divide each price by the bottle's volume so that different sizes can be compared directly. US labels round fluid ounces, so a bottle sold as 3.4 oz or 3.3 oz counts as the 100 ml bottle it is; our bottle size guide lists the conversions.
The 90-day range and price history
Every day we log the lowest price of each bottle. Once a bottle has five days of prices, the gold mark on the range bar shows where today's price sits between the lowest and highest of the past 90 days, and the chart on each fragrance page plots the daily record. Until then the table says “Coming soon”. “Lowest in N days” means today's price is below every price we have recorded for that bottle in that time.
How we decide a price has dropped
A bottle appears on the sale page when its price is at least 10% below what it usually costs on our record, or lower than any price we have logged for it. While a bottle has fewer than five days of history, it appears when it is at least 15% below Amazon's list price, and we label the comparison clearly, since list prices can sit above what a bottle normally sells for.
Who sells it
Every listing is labeled with its seller. “Sold by Amazon” and “Sold by” the house mean the bottle comes from Amazon or from the brand's own Amazon store, labeled sellers whose names appear on the listing; no seller type is a guarantee. Reseller listings show the seller's name; many are legitimate discounters, but authenticity and returns depend on that seller, so check their ratings first. Our guide to spotting fake perfume covers what to look for.
Scent notes and descriptions
The notes, launch years and perfumers on fragrance pages come from the houses' own published information, reference sites such as Parfumo and Wikipedia (both community-edited, so we do not rely on a single page), and retailer pages. We re-check each claim against separate pages we read ourselves and leave out anything we cannot confirm. Descriptions are written in our own words and say how a fragrance is usually described, not how it will smell on you; skin, climate and the batch you buy all make a difference. Where sources disagree about a date or a perfumer, we say so or leave the detail out. The “How it wears” and “When people wear it” sections are general descriptions of the listed notes and common use, not measurements or reviews.
What this site does not do
We do not test, rate or rank fragrances, and no house pays to appear or to be placed higher. When you buy through a link here we may earn a commission from Amazon at no extra cost to you, as explained in our affiliate disclosure; that never changes which bottles we list or how they are ordered.
Corrections
Listings are read automatically, and Amazon titles are not always accurate. When a size, strength or seller is read wrongly, or a listing turns out to be a different product, we correct the rules that read it and rebuild every page, so the fix applies everywhere at once rather than to a single page.