Designer Fragrance Without The Designer Price Tag

There’s something special about purchasing a designer perfume – the packaging and brand name are often part of that. Fancy bottles, fancy labels, but also a big fat fancy price tag to go alongside them! For a special occasion gift, they work well, but for your every day spritz-and-go, I find it pretty darn difficult to justify sometimes up to £100 on a 50cl bottle of fragrance. Sure, it’s a treat, but it’s not practical or easy on the wallet. That’s where similar perfumes come in.

Similar perfumes are, well, pretty much exactly what they sound like. Inspired by the well-known brands on the international market, they are an affordable way to mix and match your favourite sort of scents without having to save up for a bottle that you’re probably not going to get even halfway through without getting bored and fancying a change.

The world’s biggest online store of similar perfumes is Spanish and it’s called DIVAIN. They’re an online store with over fragrances for men, women and even a a new section of eau de cologne for kids. Cute! Every single perfume costs €19,90 (so around £17.64 each) and if you buy two or more perfumes at the same time the shipping is free. Plus, they always add in a couple of free samples of other scents to try too.

I want to be clear that I don’t condone fakes or rip offs, but I see no harm in creating fragrances that are similar to (but never claim to be) designer items. Sure, the ingredients in the designer perfumes will be higher quality, but from the three DIVAIN perfumes I have tried I can confirm that they aren’t bad at all. DIVAIN fragrances are produced in Spain with all the guarantees and standards of security of the European Union, so no worrying about nasty chemicals either.

All the fragrances on the website are simply named as numbers, and the first fragrance I was kindly gifted by DIVAIN to try was DIVAIN-576 which is meant to be similar to Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules. This is a fragrance that I have lusted after for a few years now, but never had the stomach to splash out £64.80 on a scent that I wasn’t sure I would like. Modelled after its namesake, this fragrance is made up of only one single molecule, which means its aroma is linear and doesn’t change over time. Its aroma will vary depending on the pH of your skin, meaning it smells different on everyone. Its got a woody floral musk and I find it’s light enough to wear during the day.

I also tried the DIVAIN-542, which is meant to be similar to Black Orchid by Tom Ford. Again, this fragrance is meant to be unisex (are we noticing a pattern here?) but instead of being woody, it is floral as the name suggests. I picked this one up as I already have Velvet Orchid by Tom Ford, and so wanted to try a variation of it without spending all that money again! I can confirm that this is a really strong, intense fragrance and so perfect for nights out or date nights. As I already have a Tom Ford fragrance, I can confirm that this scent is very similar to the designer version I have, with notes of jasmine, gardenia, ylang-ylang and bergamot.

Finally, I picked up the DIVAIN-136, which is similar to Sí by Armani. Unlike the other two unisex fragrances I chose, this one is very feminine! Not as intense as the other two, it is a girly and fresh floral scent with hearts of freesia and May rose and bases of vanilla, patchouli, ambroxide and woody notes. I like to wear this one as my ‘fun’ daytime weekend scent, with DIVAIN-576 as my every day office fragrance and my DIVAIN-542 as my night out scent of choice.

And I guess that’s the beauty of similar fragrances – you can just do that. Mix and match. Play and spray… That sounds questionable, you get my drift. Having a similar perfume allows you to try way more scents than you could afford usually and then, who knows, perhaps when you find a fragrance you really love, you will feel happier to pay out for the designer version. But, until then, DIVAIN allows you to join the perfume elite without the price tag.

This post contained gifted items.