Can our beauty experts tell the difference between a £12 and a £146 perfume? We put them to the test

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.

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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.

How are dupe fragrances made so affordable?

While budget scents might smell similar to their designer counterparts, they don't tend to last as long on the skin or leave the same sillage (the scented trail someone who smells amazing leaves behind them in the air), both leading to the more accessible price.

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They also normally skip the artwork-like bottles in favour of more low-key designs, and don't have the same famous faces fronting the campaigns. Marketing aside, I spoke to award-winning fragrance writer and expert Thomas Dunckley to get his take on the disparity in price points.

"When you buy an original fragrance, you are paying for creativity. It takes time (usually around two years) to develop a fragrance from scratch and includes countless hours from perfumers, evaluators, and other creatives."

In contrast, Thomas, who works with fragrance brand Kaorium notes that 'inspired by ' fragrances don’t have the same development time, as they simply attempt to copy something that already exists.

He says that the ingredients are important, too. "The original is also likely to have higher quality materials. 'Inspired by' brands are trying to keep the costs low, so will substitute materials for much cheaper alternatives. Original fragrances are also created with captive materials - materials that are exclusive to certain fragrance houses. These are proprietary materials created after years of research and development, and the inspired by brands are not able to include these within their formulas, so what they create is an inferior product that will not smell identical to the original, nor will it last as long for these reasons."

My take on fragrances 'inspired by' designer or indie scents? They're a great accessible entry point for people who yearn for luxury fragrances but don't have the budget (yet!). I also know people who use the dupe during the day, saving the original for evenings and special occasions when they want to make more of an impression.

Would I wear a dupe? I wouldn't go for a direct replica of a scent, but if it's simply using similar notes to create something unique, I wouldn't reject it...