Consumers can justify buying one-sixth of a bottle of new perfume each month, but maybe not a whole bottle in one go.

ECONOMIST: On the drip

He also points out that, despite the fact that perfume companies come out with new products every year, the ingredients remain largely unchanged and still include many substances identified in Biblical perfume recipes.

ECONOMIST: Cor, you don��t half smell

Surprisingly, the luxury-goods business is having a strong year, largely thanks to demand in China, the Gulf and other emerging economies. (Indeed, things have been so good that perfume-makers face a new product-liability problem in Russia, where oligarchs' girlfriends buy dozens of bottles in order to bathe in a fragrance, unaware that this can be deadly.) Japan, which experienced similar excesses in the 1980s, still accounts for around a quarter of global luxury-goods sales.

ECONOMIST: Why sales of luxury goods are slowing

Analysts worry that the brand is not yet established enough to stretch easily across new categories, which include houseware and accessories such as perfume and shoes (where most luxury-goods groups make their money).

ECONOMIST: Face value

New York perfumery school, teaches aspiring perfumers the basics of perfume skills.

WSJ: How to Sharpen Your Sense of Smell

It recently released a new air freshener with a motion sensor to tell it when to spray its perfume, which is a fifth more expensive than the humbler sort, for example.

ECONOMIST: Consumer goods in the recession