Photographing perfume and cosmetics: glass and reflections

Photographing a perfume means photographing a small mirror filled with liquid. The glass reflects everything around it, the juice only shows its colour when light passes through it, and the gold cap shines brighter than anything else. A cosmetic raises a different question: showing an exact texture and shade, without promising anything the product will not deliver.

Why is a perfume bottle so hard to photograph?

A perfume bottle combines three materials that each respond to light in their own way: the glass reflects, the juice colours the light passing through it, the metal of the cap shines. A single light placed in front of the bottle can only get one of the three right at a time. The whole technique lies in separating these roles: one light to draw the glass, one to light up the juice, one to make the cap shine without blowing it out.

Glass, a mirror at the edges

Glass changes its nature with the angle. An optics note hosted by Cornell University's computer graphics programme puts a figure on it: most glasses and plastics reflect only about 4% of light when seen head-on, but up to 100% at a grazing angle. On the sides of a bottle, where the eye slides across the surface, the glass becomes a mirror. It shows the room, the lamps, sometimes the photographer. A light placed in front of the bottle shows up as a white patch in the middle of the label.

The juice, a colour that comes from the light

The colour of a perfume only appears in the image if light passes through the liquid. Lit from the front, an amber juice looks dark, almost opaque. Lit from behind, or bounced by a small white reflector hidden behind the bottle, it glows. For the perfume house Jeroboam, close-ups of the Gozo bottle show an orange juice that seems to radiate from within, with the house name crisp on the glass. A black or opaque bottle poses the opposite problem: there is no juice to light up, so it is the silhouette that has to be drawn.

The cap and the label, the details the eye sees first

The polished metal of a cap behaves like a curved mirror: it reflects the entire set in miniature. For a gold cap to look gold, rather than white or brown, it needs a light surface to reflect, placed with precision. The label must be straight, legible and free of glare: it is often the first thing the brand checks. In the Jeroboam series, a gold cap photographed in close-up against a stone is enough to carry the image of the house.

Drawing glass with light: light or dark background

A bottle is not lit, it is drawn: light is used to trace its outline and to choose what it reflects. Two classic approaches follow from this. On a light background, the edges of the glass appear in black. On a dark background, they appear in light. The choice depends on the colour of the bottle and on how the image will be used. We have described this relationship between light and material for the plate in our article on light in food photography; glass takes it to the extreme.

On a light background, a crisp outline

A white surface lit behind the bottle shows through the glass and acts as the background. Black panels placed on either side, out of frame, are reflected on the edges and draw a dark, even outline that gives the bottle its shape. This is the basis of the perfume packshot. In the Jeroboam series, black bottles stand out this way against white, one beside a pear, another next to an upright vanilla pod, with the sharpness of a shadow puppet.

On a dark background, a rim of light

The principle is reversed. The background stays black, and strips of light placed behind or beside the bottle pick out its edges. The glass only appears through its outline, as if drawn in line. One image in the Jeroboam series takes the technique to its limit: a bottle on a table, lit from behind, with only its rim glowing in the dark and the light passing through it spreading across the table in front. This register serves brand imagery more than product pages, where the buyer wants to see the whole bottle.

Reflection as part of the composition

A reflection is not always something to get rid of. Set on a glossy black surface, a bottle is doubled by a reflection that lengthens its silhouette. Set on sheets of glass, its edges multiply. Several images in the Jeroboam series play with these surfaces, with orange, black or white bottles resting on glass or on a black lacquered background. The rule remains the same: a reflection is chosen, never suffered.

Showing a scent: the olfactory still life

A perfume cannot be seen: the image has to suggest it through what surrounds the bottle. Raw materials, plants, smoke, water: the olfactory still life translates a composition into visible materials, without a word on the label. This is where perfume photography parts ways with simple object photography.

Raw materials on set

The series created for Jeroboam demonstrates this bottle by bottle. Saffron threads are scattered around Gozo, vanilla pods accompany Insulo: two materials from their compositions. Elsewhere, pears and raspberries frame a black bottle, a pineapple cut in half surrounds another, and moss-covered branches hold a third in the smoke. The range keeps its unity (the same bottle shape, the same gold cap) while each perfume receives its own setting. The whole series can be seen on the Jeroboam project page.

This work is decided before the shoot. The choice of materials, palette and tone falls under art direction. The arrangement owes a great deal to food styling: a saffron thread, a pod or a berry is placed like a garnish, in service of the main subject. To build these references without borrowing those of another house, our article on how to find inspiration without copying offers a method.

Smoke, mist, drops: making the air visible

A perfume lives in the air, and three elements make it visible in an image. The spray mist only appears against a dark background, lit from the side or from behind: in one image of the series, a hand presses the Gozo atomiser and the cloud of droplets crosses the black. Smoke wraps the bottle in a moving veil. Water drops on the glass suggest freshness, as on a bottle of Unue covered in droplets and shot against the light. No mist and no curl of smoke ever repeats itself: these images require many takes and a rigorous edit.

This is also the natural territory of video. A curl of smoke or a slow-motion spray tells the story of a perfume better than a still image. The studio films these material shots as short formats for social media, and produces more crafted films for a launch. Our article on food video explains the logic of storytelling in images, which applies just as well to a bottle.

Photographing cosmetics: texture and shade first

For a cosmetic, the image must first tell the truth about the material: the shade of a lipstick, the smoothness of a cream, the grain of a powder. This is what people compare before choosing, and it is what disappoints if the photograph strays from it. The perfume bottle calls for control over reflections; the cosmetic calls for control over colour and relief.

An accurate shade, product by product

A shade is judged on screen, and the screen is unforgiving. The method comes down to three rules: the same light for the whole range, a white balance set once and for all, and a colour chart photographed in the same conditions to check the result in post-production. Each shade is then compared with the real product. A swatch of the product on a neutral surface, next to the closed product, shows what the case does not.

Making a texture legible

The relief of a cream, a pressed powder or a balm appears under a raking light, arriving almost parallel to the surface. The same cream lit from the front looks flat. A pearlescent powder needs a harder light to make its shimmer sparkle; a gloss or a glossy lipstick is handled like glass, by choosing what it reflects. The containers (glass jar, tube, metal case) follow the same rules as the perfume bottle.

What retouching is allowed to do

The image of a cosmetic commits the brand. In the European Union, Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 governs cosmetic product claims in its Article 20, and its implementing Regulation (EU) No 655/2013 covers images as well as text. In France, the advertising self-regulatory body ARPP draws the practical rule in its Cosmetic Products Recommendation (in French, version 8, applied since 1 July 2019): pre- and post-production techniques are acceptable as long as they do not give the impression that the product has characteristics or functions it does not have.

Enhancing an image remains allowed. The ARPP lists obvious exaggeration and stylised beauty images among the cases it does not consider misleading, along with techniques that improve the image independently of the product. The line runs through the product itself:

These rules apply to advertising in France, and the rules vary from one country to another. For an international campaign, the framework in each market is checked with the brand and its advisers, before the shoot rather than at delivery.

Packshot or brand image: two different briefs

The same perfume needs two types of images that follow different rules. The packshot informs: the bottle alone, whole, sharp, identical from one product to the next. The brand image creates desire: it composes, suggests and dares, within the limits of fidelity to the product. Most houses need both, ideally produced during the same shoot.

The stakes go well beyond France. According to the French Treasury (Direction générale du Trésor, October 2025), beauty (perfume and cosmetics) generated a trade surplus of €17.3 billion in 2024, the second largest sector contribution to the French trade balance, just behind aerospace. France has been the world's leading exporter of perfume and cosmetics since the 2000s. The same series of images therefore serves a website, retailers, marketplaces and the press, in France and abroad.

The packshot: consistency first

A perfume packshot is judged on its consistency: the same background, the same light, the same framing across the range, the whole bottle visible and the label legible. Reflections are reduced to the outline, so that nothing distracts from the object. It is the image for product pages and marketplaces, whose requirements (background, share of the frame filled by the product, number of images) are detailed in our article on packshots and in-context product photography. Range visuals can stay graphic: for Jeroboam, a dozen bottles photographed from above on white, with their long shadows, form a collection image without losing the rigour of the packshot.

The brand image: a setting for each perfume

The brand image relies on still life, campaigns or lifestyle scenes. It accompanies a launch, a season or a collaboration, and is rolled out across the website, social media and the press. The studio works with perfume, cosmetics and lifestyle brands, from packshot to campaign: the series created for houses such as Jeroboam or Champagne La Caravelle can be seen in our art de vivre work.

How do you prepare a perfume or cosmetics shoot?

A perfume or cosmetics shoot is won in the preparation, because the lens magnifies everything: a fingerprint, a speck of dust, a scratch on the glass or a crooked cap shows more than anything else. Five points are settled before the day.

1. Flawless products, in several copies. New bottles, free of scratches, with the same level of juice, and spare copies of the key products.
2. Gloves and cleaning between every shot. A microfibre cloth and an air blower stay within reach throughout the session.
3. The list of products and their variations. Sizes, shades, gift sets, with the brand's priorities.
4. The materials and props for the still life. Approved with the art director before the shoot, so that each perfume has its own setting.
5. The use of each image. Website, e-commerce, social media, press, point of sale: each use has its own format, to be planned at the time of shooting.

These points are set down in a brief. Our photo brief checklist for a brand, written for food, applies almost as is to a perfume or a skincare product. The studio's photography services cover packshots and product images for brands, and its production work handles the set, props and logistics when the project calls for it. Our article from food photographer to creative studio explains how the studio organises these projects.

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