….Is my favorite compliment EVER! The only problem with perfume shopping is if the inevitable headache from sampling different scents doesn’t take you out, the sticker shock will usually finish the job. 

Today I am going to share some tips, tricks, and even a few dupes to help you smell like a million dollars-without having to spend it. However, I want to begin with a disclaimer: “The opinions shared are from my personal experience ONLY. I was not paid by any of the below mentioned companies for this review. As always when spending your money, please do your own research. And lastly, pheromones are real. What works with my body chemistry may not work with yours”.

Now that we’ve established that, grab a pen and paper and let’s get started. 

I could LITERALLY talk about perfume companies and scents I’ve tried for hours but for the purpose of keeping your interest, I am only going to talk about some recent favorites I’ve discovered. 

Up first is the TikTok infamous Maison Francis Kurkdjian. For the remainder of this post, I will refer to this company as MFK. If you know anything about MFK it’s probably because of this small red bottle.

       

This scent has gained an almost cult like following and yes, they got your girl too!

It all started the Summer of 2022 when I saw a viral video showing that Nordstrom was selling an MFK sampler set for $55. I got it, had to. The sampler had two versions of Baccarat 540 including the original and an extrait, as well as 6 of their other scents. I stretched those scents longer than any paycheck I’ve ever received. One day silly me thought “just get a small bottle” so back to Nordstrom.com I went. 

Please sit down if you are standing….

The cheapest bottle I found was $325…I’ve never closed a webpage so fast in my life. $325?! For perfume? In this economy? There has to be a better way. ( There is and I found it!)

First, I heard about a dupe of a dupe…. confusing? Yes. Less expensive? Also yes!

Apparently, Ariana Grande has a scent called ‘Cloud’ that was coined as the dupe for Baccarat. But a dupe for that perfume was made by the company Pacifica called ‘Dream Moon’. The current price is around $15 and can be found at Ulta and on Amazon. I purchased mine at Target last summer for around $13. Now (at the time) I had never smelled Cloud but Dream Moon…in my opinion, was a pretty good dupe for Baccarat Rouge. The only problem was that for my $13 I felt like I only got 13 minutes of fragrance. That would never work for me, so the search continued.

Next, I found a website called ALT. Fragrances that sells designer dupes at a fraction of the price. On their main page there was a scent they called ‘Crystal No.23’ which was my first REAL dupe of Baccarat 325… I mean Baccarat Rouge 540. This was a great dupe and stayed on for hours, around 8 to be exact. Which was awesome because the price was less than $50, which I felt was fair. Now from my sample of the original I was able to get at least 12 or more hours of fragrance (and at that price you should). To this day, the ALT dupe is my favorite! I even passed on an opportunity to purchase the real Baccarat Rouge 540 because I had this dupe. Now all good things come with some form of a challenge. The challenge I have found with this brand is that the sprayer is not consistent and will clog easily. I went over to Amazon and purchased these empty perfume bottles and transferred the product over. Is it ideal? No. Will I continue to use the brand? For sure!

The last dupe I want to talk about is a scent called Sweven by a company named Oakcha. Again, I found this dupe on TikTok and recently gave it a try. Immediately a yes. After about 5 minutes….I was concerned. The area I sprayed had a faint ketchup smell. I don’t think this was the fault of the company, I believe it reacted to a scent I already had on because when I wore it fresh out of the shower, I never experienced it again. Also remember, pheromones are real. Maybe it wasn’t my day. The difference I have found with Sweven is that although I still prefer the ALT alternative (wait I see what they did LOL), I can appreciate that Sweven has less of an alcohol scent and more a pure rich perfume scent. There’s just something about ALT that I can’t get away from. The Oakcha dupe for Baccarat Rouge will run you around $40. 

Okay so a few minutes ago I mentioned giving up the chance to purchase a full bottle of Baccarat. I still can’t believe that happened but let me explain why. Neiman Marcus is one of few stores you can buy Baccarat in person at and one day I was there to test out a few of my favorites. One was another MFK sample standout called Oud Satin Mood. It is a totally different scent than Baccarat but, in my opinion, it can go up against it any day. I’ve never been able to find a dupe for Oud so on a day where I needed a life pick-me-up. I did it. I spent wayyyy too much money on the scent. But why not Baccarat? Well, that same trip I learned that Baccarat has a scented body oil with a much more reasonable price point-$95. So, I decided to purchase the body oil and layer that with my ALT dupe giving me literally the best of both worlds. And yes, that decision made me feel better about purchasing Oud and I stand behind that decision to this day!

At this point talking about one fragrance for two pages is probably more than enough for you, so I am going to make a part two and talk about some of my other favorite brands and dupes. Also come back tomorrow where I’ll share a hack to extend the staying power of any fragrance you have.