How we pick dupes

The rules behind every list on this site

A dupe list is only worth reading if you know how it was made. Most of them are somebody's opinion, or an affiliate page dressed up as advice. Ours is a set of rules applied to the same data every time, and this page is those rules in full, including the parts that limit what we can honestly tell you.

Where the data comes from

Fragrance records on Underscentable come from the Fragella database: brand, note pyramid, accord profile, longevity, sillage and an indicative price. We do not collect this ourselves and we do not edit it. What we add is the selection, which records are worth putting in front of you and in what order.

The five rules

Shared accords, not a similar name

Accords are the broad character of a fragrance: woody, vanilla, sweet, fresh spicy. We take the four strongest accords of the original and look for fragrances that carry them. An alternative has to share at least two before it can appear at all.

This matters more than it sounds. Searching by name finds bottles with similar words on the label, which is how you end up with a list of things that have nothing in common but their branding.

It has to actually be cheaper

Every alternative on a dupe page costs less than the fragrance it is an alternative to. That sounds obvious, and it is exactly what scent similarity rankings get wrong: left alone they will offer a 440 euro Creed as an alternative to a 300 euro one.

Some prices in the source data are clearly wrong, usually a sample or a decant listed at the price of a full bottle. We treat anything under 15 euro as unknown rather than as a fact. When the original has no believable price the page keeps its suggestions but drops the savings claim, and nothing above 150 euro can appear on it.

Perfume only

The catalogue mixes fine fragrance with body wash, deodorant, candles, room spray and body mist under the same brand names. None of those answer the question of what smells like this for less, so they are excluded. A record also needs a note pyramid of its own before it counts as a fragrance we can describe.

Something you can actually buy

Below a certain level of recognition the catalogue turns into marketplace listings and baby colognes. We require a fragrance to reach at least the medium popularity tier before it can be recommended.

This is not a quality filter and it is not a bias towards designer houses. The affordable brands that answer a dupe search, Lattafa, Armaf, Zara and the like, sit comfortably above that line.

The same audience

A feminine fragrance is not an alternative to a masculine one, whatever the accords say. Unisex counts in both directions.

How the order is decided

Everything that survives the five rules is scored, and the score is weighted heavily towards the scent:

70%how much of the original's accord profile it carries
25%how much you save, as a share of the original's price
5%recognition, used only to break a tie between equal matches

Price is a quarter of the score rather than half on purpose. The cheapest bottle that shares two accords is usually a worse answer than a slightly dearer one that shares four.

What we do not claim

We have not smelled these. Every comparison on this site is made from note and accord data, not from a nose. Two fragrances built on the same accords can still wear very differently, and no amount of data will tell you that. Buy a sample before you buy a bottle.

Prices are indicative. They come from the source data, not from a live feed, and they move. Always check the retailer.

Ratings are not ours. Where you see a rating it is the source database's aggregate, not reviews collected from Underscentable visitors, and we do not present it as ours.

A dupe is not a copy. These are fragrances that occupy the same territory. None of them are counterfeit, and none of them are marketed by their houses as versions of anything else.

Why a list can be short

Some pages show eighteen alternatives and some show four. A short list means the rules above removed the rest, usually because they were not cheaper or not actually perfume. We would rather show four defensible suggestions than pad the page out to a round number.

And some fragrances have no page at all. If a fragrance is already the affordable option in its category, there is nothing honest to put underneath it.

See it applied

Search any fragrance and the rules on this page run against it.

Find a dupe

Spotted something wrong?

If a suggestion on this site does not hold up, we want to know. Mail info@underscentable.com with the page and what is off about it.