It’s true that decades ago, master perfumers tinkered with ingredients that were harder to source. Natural ingredients reigned supreme, some of which were very expensive, like iris root, rose de Grasse, jasmine, and oud. Certain notes came from sources that were allergenic, environmentally harmful to harvest, or collected from animals using cruel methods, so necessary changes were made to use more and more synthetic ingredients. As a result, many perfume houses were able to cut the costs of production with inexpensive, great-smelling, and abundant man-made molecules. They did not—and still have not—passed those savings on to the consumer. To their credit, the dupe brands are.
—Read more in Why Is the Fragrance Industry So Obsessed With Secrets? at Harper's Bazaar.
I was very interested in this article – thanks, Robin. Several good points, but this rings true: ” If heritage and luxury fragrance brands want to protect their fragrances and maintain relevance, they’re going to have to get honest—really, really honest. Tell us, the people, why your scent is truly better than the rest.” BTW, I am currently looking forward to testing a dupe of Angel that came with an Ebay lot. Maybe I will like it better?!
Ha, that’s possible too!
I am not sure I agree 100% with the premise. It’s certainly true that perfumistas see it this way, but IMHO the serious high end luxury brands appeal because people want the brand name and packaging. I don’t think that kind of consumer cares for total honesty.
Yes, I am being idealistic. But I think I would have been willing to pay more for a perfume if I knew it *truly* had the best musk, orris, and/or ambergris even before the rabbit hole. Much more so since. Some big brands have at least tried to offer special things – looking at you, Vanilla Panifolia – so that tips their hands. They will churn out meh flankers, but know there is a market for the special.
As the name suggests ‘dupe’ houses duplicate existing popular fragrances. If popular niche/designer fragrances no longer existed what would dupe houses do with nothing to duplicate? Do they have the creativity & marketing skills to be able to create a market for their own original fragrances without piggy-backing on the work of others? If luxury fragrances dropped their prices to the level of dupe houses why would anyone buy a dupe fragrance again if the original is more or less the same price as the dupe?
As Robin says a lot of what customers are buying is the name & packaging/bottle. I remember seeing a statistic that 90% of the Louis Vuitton bags in circulation hanging on women’s arms are fake. You may buy Calvin Klone underwear & it may fit just fine but it still ain’t Calvin Klein & owning that fake Goyard handbag is nowhere near as satisfying as owning the real thing.
Good point, that dupes piggyback. But marketing aside, brands need to be called out if they are only selling marketing. The big brands certainly could make something so good that a profitable number of customers would know that is not the dupe. I’ve often thought that if every Walgreens in every small town sells Samsara, there surely hasn’t been enough sandalwood growing in 100 years to offer the real deal. But I do think that the bean counters could find a way to produce some number of scents with the finest ingredients. Also, I don’t object to a dupe perfume because I like that someone would squeeze $10 out of the budget because they want to smell good every day. Somehow I am more offended by fake handbags and clothing – seems like more than just piggybacking?
All luxury brands are selling marketing – there is no sensible reason why a handbag that costs $100 to make should be retailed for $5000, other than that some customers want to be seen using that brand & the assumed prestige it affords them.
The dupe brands are also selling marketing by tying their fragrance into the ‘real’ fragrance they copied – a dupe that ‘smells just like Creed’ etc is piggy-backing on the marketing & brand identity of Creed by offering ‘the same thing but cheap’.
Interesting article. Not sure about dupes smelling the same as the real thing. I have a couple that I like on their own merit but they don’t smell exactly like what they are copying.
I have not smelled a dupe in years, but that certainly was usually the case.
Enjoyed the article and put the book ghost perfumer on my reading list too. Has anyone here read it? Is is worth buying?
I haven’t, sorry!
Very interesting article , thank you. There are questions I am asking myself lately, for example I want to know how much of rose oil is used in my favourite rose perfume. I came to the conclusion that it’s not much since the rose oil is very expensive. I really would appreciate transparency from the perfume houses.
In a sense they do offer a form of transparency as every bottle is required to carry the INCI information so its easy to see what they are actually putting inside the bottle.
I always assume that unless it is a niche house that produces only 250 bottles a year (for example) then there will rarely be very much, if any, ‘real’ expensive raw materials within the formulation. Even with economies of scale, any company that produces 2 million bottles of a rose perfume every year & sells it for $150 could only possibly be using trace amounts of ‘rose oil’ just so that they can claim it in the marketing. Oud is another example where it’s astronomical price means that 95% of oud perfumes have never been anywhere near real oud & rely on ‘oud accords’ etc.
In a sense they do offer transparency as every bottle is required to carry the INCI information so its easy to see what they are actually putting inside the bottle.