Dupe culture is rife in the beauty world. Charlotte Tilbury, whose iconic products are among the most frequently copied, tackled the tricky topic during an interview with the BBC, commenting: "When you dupe, you dupe the consumer," noting that the copies of her makeup might look the same, but they won't perform in the same way.
While I'm with Charlotte on that, I think that dupes in the fragrance world do have a place. Hear me out.
When it comes to scent, high street and budget perfumes tend to be 'inspired by' designer fragrances rather than straight copycats; they might take inspiration from some of the notes, but they rarely directly copy the packaging for a full-on rip-off, making it feel less flagrant.
But still, they sometimes smell remarkably similar on first spray, so I wanted to see if my beauty-loving colleagues at HELLO! could tell the difference between a £12 scent and a £146 one during a blind test.
Watch the video below to find out…
In summary: our blindfolded testers were easily able to tell which was the more expensive scent, but they didn't necessarily prefer it, with many liking the high-street fragrance just as much, they could just tell the other one was pricier...