When searching for a signature scent, the classics are your go-tos. Chanel, Dior – these icons own the perfume industry. But sometimes, it’s just not realistic to shell out $150+ on a scent. That’s why I, a woman with champagne tastes and a beer budget, decided to research the most affordable perfume dupes for these expensive fragrances – and I’m here to share them with you.
First: Top, Middle, and Base Notes
When it comes to choosing a perfume, the most important thing: that you like its smell! This is where notes come into play.
Top notes last five to 15 minutes, and they’re the first whiff you’ll get when smelling a perfume. Common top notes include lavender, citrus, and anise.
Middle notes, aka heart notes, last longer — about 20 minutes to an hour. These generally smell like the “heart” of the perfume, aka the full-body smell, and they make up approximately 70% of the total scent, despite their shorter lifespan. Middle notes include jasmine, ylang ylang, pine, and cardamom.
Finally, base notes. These are the foundations, the notes that every other note rests upon. Base notes generally last six hours or more — they’re the scents that linger once the night is done. Common base notes are vanilla, musk, and woody smells.
Classic Perfumes Versus Affordable Dupes
I love a good dupe. My favourite is finding perfume dupes cause the price difference is insane!
— Nichola Banks / Candlelit Creations Co (@nicholapanting) January 28, 2021
Perfume dupes are made using similar ingredients as classic perfumes — they’re just more affordable, and they’re marketed as such. There are also “Inspired By” perfumes, which are marketed as alternatives to signature scents rather than direct dupes. Basically: a dupe perfume is an affordable alternative, while an inspired by perfume may be affordable, but is sold as a similar scent.
Perfume dupes often smell sweeter than expensive perfumes. This is because expensive perfumes’ top notes, middle notes, and base notes are more prominent, while dupes tend to only have a single, combined note (aka, consisting of each smell in one note), or an expensive perfume’s top notes.
When it comes to how long perfume dupes last, the numbers are pretty similar. On the skin, perfume can last anywhere between three and 12 hours. When it comes to expiration dates (yep, perfumes have expiration dates like your makeup), both classics and dupes generally expire after three to five years.
Our Favorite Dupes
Now that you know the differences between expensive and affordable perfumes, we’ve gathered a selection of classics’ fragrance dupes that you can snag at an affordable price.
Jasmine and gardenia are the dominating scents in this Sand & Sable perfume. Armani’s Gardenia Antigua is, obviously, an ode to gardenia, but Sand & Sable’s dupe will convince everyone that it cost $125.
With a middle note of rose in both Queens & Monsters and Animale, as well as hints of wood — Queens & Monsters has a base note of sandalwood, while Animale has a base note of oakmoss — no one needs to know you’ve nabbed an earthy perfume that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
I know: the iconic Chanel Nº5 is hard to duplicate. But Yves Saint Laurent grasps onto the tantalizing smell, with the classic floral notes at the forefront. It might not be the exact same, but the similarities are striking.
SHOP YVES SAINT LAURENT – $74.99
Combine all floral scents together like a chemist, and you’ll create Diorissimo’s affordable twin. Lily of the valley, magnolia, and white iris (just to name a few) help to create the best bouquet within Kate Spade’s dupe.
A white flower with notes of orange, tuberose is extremely popular — hence its addition to Fracas. Add lily of the valley and white iris, and you’ve got a sophisticated smell. Tocca’s Florence takes on the tuberose, too, along with pear and gardenia, for that classic scent.
It’s hard to truly capture the lily in Le Labo’s Lys 41…but the lily in My Happy Lily of the Beach comes close. Clinique’s dupe offers hints of amber, ylang ylang, and sandalwood, while the lily and vanilla come through time and time again, dominating the nose in the best way — just like the classic.
Do you use any affordable perfumes as your signature scent? Share your secrets in the comments!
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