Cheap Smell-alikes - Cheaper alternatives to Expensive Perfumes

sofababe

Artytarty wrote: »

Am I the only mug who thought Boss Orange would smell of oranges?!
I had a hankering to revisit my youth in the 1970's and I remembered loving "Aqua Manda" a blow your head of strong orangey fragrance!
My daughter just shook her head sadly when I told her I was disappointed in the Boss fragrance.
I understand now that it just refers to the colour of the bottle or box , something like that and it does smell OK but not what I thought I was getting
*embarrased smile*

Have you tried the Body Shop Satsuma perfume oil? Does exactly what it says on the tin! The body butter is to die for too, I love orange also. Perfume Parlour do a unisex section, I'm sure there's an "Orange Blossom" oil there. They also do an oil based on Jo Malone's Orange Blossom, which is very expensive usually.

chrisvaldez

Eildor wrote: »

Has anyone tried one of the Armani Code (for men) types and could confirm how similar they are to the original? Most of the posts here are about the women's fragrances -- where are all the men?!

Thank you

Funnily enough I've ordered 'Hidden Code Black' for £3. I'll let you know how similar it is!

Robie

Great thread and found it by mistake.

I have 3 oils from perfume-parlour. Liberate (obviously to see if it smells like 1 million which is too expensive), Bondage || (well why not) and Destiny (DKNY smell-a-like). Let us see how they smell.

BTW: We went on holiday last year to Kerala (down south in India well below Goa). There they have lots of perfumers. I bought 1 for me and 2 for my wife. At first the smell didn't take with me *at all* but what he said was - smell it tomorrow. Don't buy anything now and come back tomorrow if you like the smell. I tell you, next day the smell was divine. Obviously, I bought it. The smell lasts days on end in the clothes. It doesn't smell so strong on the skin.

One important thing with the oils is to apply them to your *clothes* not the skin - this is what the perfumer said to us. Apply them where people won't see them directly. Darker the clothes better it is, i.e. don't put it on a light-coloured shirt/blouse. For example, put it on the collar of a jacket at the back.

Anyway, that is my 2pc worth. Hope it is useful to others. Meanwhile I wait for my oils from Perfume-Parlour :0).

I will update once I try them out.

Scrapaholic

Just reading about Boss Orange + it not smelling like Acqua Manda . I also loved that in the 70's + haven't found anything like it . I'll look in the Body shop for satsuma smells . I love a citrus smelling fragrance + L'Occitane lemon verbena is lovely. Sadly , not very money saving .

anesty616

i found this shop through a perfume party and lady pointed me to this perfectfragrance.co.uk website. email them what you normally wear and they'll send you samples of smell a like. my hubby loves paco rabanne 1 million and their one is FM199 only 16.99 for 100 ml bottle - such a life saver and lasts all day love it :beer:

Eildor

anesty616 wrote: »

i found this shop through a perfume party and lady pointed me to this perfectfragrance.co.uk website. email them what you normally wear and they'll send you samples of smell a like. my hubby loves paco rabanne 1 million and their one is FM199 only 16.99 for 100 ml bottle - such a life saver and lasts all day love it :beer:

If it's for free then I'm interested.

Eildor

I purchased a few oils from PP; Blackness, Army Man, Powerful, Credit Irish, Motionless Intense and Speechless. I've only smelt two of the originals, Armani Code (Blackness) and Green Irish Tweed (Credit Irish)... I haven't smelt Green Irish Tweed in a long time, so I wont comment on the likeliness of Credit Irish to it. I'm quite familiar with Armani Code, and I have to say that Blackness isn't as good of a copy as I'd like... it lacks depth and I don't get that fresh powdery feel which I like about the original -- Blackness reminds me more of a Lynx roll on.

The service PP provide is excellent though; items delivered fast and came in little pouches which is cool.

pattycake

I am with you on the excellent service. I ordered 3 perfume sprays. I placed my order on Friday morning last week. I put a note on the order not to send by recorded delivery and they were on my doormat on Saturday morning. That really is impressive!

They used to send my orders by recorded delivery but as I was never at home when the postman called, it meant a 5 mile round trip to the local sorting office. I now always ask them not to use recorded delivery and they can then just be put through the letter box.

My latest purchases are Charm (Miss Dior Cherie), Shadow (Ghost) and Gold Lady (Lady Million). All are yummy but I knew that as I have had them before!

sofababe

There are several new additions on the PP list. I'm getting the urge to order again

nix_2

I've just received my order from PP and I'm very impressed. I got Stealth (Stella), Sky (D&G Light Blue) Issimo (issey Miyake), Rise (Rive Gauche), and Chances (Chance). I have worn the Stella, Issey and Light Blue ones and they are identical to the real thing IMO. And they last most of the day. Just a dab on the neck and wrist and that's all you need.