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.
Every alternative on a dupe page is a fragrance with its own page on this site, so you can open it and check everything we say about it. The price on its card is the price on that page.
The six rules
The same accords, at the same strength
Accords are the broad character of a fragrance: woody, vanilla, sweet, fresh spicy. Each record lists them and says how strong each one is, in three steps: dominant, prominent or moderate. We compare the two bottles on three things.
How many of the original’s accords the alternative has. How much of the alternative is made of those accords, so a bottle with a long list cannot cover a short profile by accident. And whether the accords they share are about as strong in both, which we measure by comparing the two strength profiles as a whole.
To appear at all, an alternative needs at least 50% of the original’s accords, at least 50% of its own accords shared, and strength profiles that line up at least 70%.
Half the price or less
An alternative costs at most 50% of the original. A bottle that is only slightly cheaper saves nobody anything, and a scent similarity ranking left alone will happily offer a 280 euro bottle as the alternative to a 285 euro one.
Prices are checked before anything is compared, because a slice of the source data is wrong in ways that look believable. Anything under 15 euro is treated as unknown. A price that repeats across a large share of one house is a placeholder, not a price. And an alternative priced far below the rest of its own house, under 40% of what the house’s bottles typically cost, is almost always a sample or a decant, so it is left out.
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, and a record whose accord list and strengths contradict each other is not compared at all.
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.
Another house
A cheaper bottle from the same house is a sibling, not a dupe. The eau de toilette of a fragrance you already know is worth knowing about, but it belongs on that fragrance’s own page rather than in a list of alternatives.
How the order is decided
Closest strength profile first. When two alternatives are equally close, the cheaper one goes first. A house can take at most 2 places in one list, and a fragrance the catalogue happens to hold twice appears once.
Price is a condition rather than a score on purpose. Once an alternative costs half as much or less, ranking it higher for being cheaper still would push a thin match above a close one.
Each card then says how close it is, in one of three words:
- Close matchat least 75% of the original’s accords, at least 60% of its own shared, and strength profiles that line up at least 85%. The original needs 6 accords or more, because a short profile can be covered but not really matched.
- Near matchthe same accords, but not at the same strength.
- Partial matchshares part of the profile. Worth knowing, not a substitute.
What that adds up to across the catalogue is on which dupes hold up.
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 12 alternatives and some show one. A short list means the rules above removed the rest, usually because nothing else at half the price carries enough of the profile. We would rather show one defensible suggestion 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 dupeSpotted 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.