The perfume that costs $1.3 million: what is hidden inside the giant bottle?
What if a perfume bottle cost more than an apartment, and not because of the scent? The Emirati perfume company The Spirit of Dubai created Shumukh, a luxury perfume priced at about $1.295 million for three liters, turning the bottle itself into a work of art.
What if a perfume bottle cost more than an apartment, and not because of the scent? The Emirati perfume company The Spirit of Dubai created Shumukh, a luxury perfume priced at about $1.295 million for three liters, turning the bottle itself into a work of art and a giant piece of jewelry.
Behind the perfume are three years of research and 494 development attempts before the manufacturers reached the final version. The name Shumukh, which means in Arabic "worthy of the highest status," is intended to reflect the particularly luxurious nature of the creation.
But with all due respect to the scent, it is hard to ignore the bottle. It is made of Italian Murano crystal and decorated with gold, diamonds, and gemstones. It features 3,571 diamonds with a total weight of 38.55 carats, alongside large pearls, about 2.5 kg of 18-karat gold, and 5.9 kg of pure silver.
The design was not chosen by chance. The bottle features a golden falcon, Arabian horses, roses, and a globe, with the creators saying that the decorations and ingredients brought from different parts of the world are intended to tell the story of Dubai.
The scent itself is an international combination: among the ingredients are sandalwood, musk, ylang-ylang, Turkish rose, Indian oud, and patchouli. These are perfumes intended for both women and men, but in this case, the scent is only part of the experience.
The bottle itself won two Guinness World Records: the first for the largest number of diamonds set in a perfume bottle, and the second for being the tallest commercial perfume spray bottle with a remote-controlled mechanism. The bottle stands nearly two meters tall and is placed on a padded leather base.
The identity of the buyer of the unique bottle has not been revealed, but the creation was presented to the public in Dubai. It joins a limited market of super-perfumes whose price is in the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
For comparison, Clive Christian No.1 Imperial Majesty is considered one of the most expensive perfumes in the category. In 2005, only ten bottles were sold at a price of about $205,000 for a 500 ml bottle, with the price also including delivery via a Bentley car.
In the case of Shumukh, the numbers are in a different league: almost $1.3 million, three liters of perfume, thousands of diamonds, and kilograms of precious metals. In this case, it is hard to decide what is more expensive, the scent or everything around it.
