Every dupe guide, review and comparison on this site follows the same process. Here's what's behind a Fragrenza recommendation — and what isn't.
Our disclosure, first
Fragrenza makes many of the affordable alternatives featured in our guides. We're not a neutral marketplace, and we don't pretend to be: we're a fragrance house writing about the originals that inspire our compositions. What we owe you instead of neutrality is accuracy — the comparisons below describe how we try to earn it.
How a comparison is made
- We start from the original. Our perfumery team analyses the original fragrance's composition using GC-MS (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry) so a match is based on what's actually in the bottle, not marketing copy.
- Side-by-side wear tests. Before we publish a guide, the original and our composition are worn together — one on each arm — through the full life of the scent: opening, heart and drydown, across warm and cold days.
- We score what you can verify. Longevity in hours, projection, the notes you'll actually detect, and where the dupe differs from the original. Where ours falls short — a thinner opening, a shorter tail — the guide says so.
- Educational pages stay educational. Our notes glossary describes raw materials and accords without sales pitches.
What we don't do
- We don't claim a dupe is "identical" to an original. Nothing is; concentration, maceration and materials all differ.
- We don't review competitor products as if we were neutral — our guides compare originals to our own compositions and say so.
- We don't use a number like "97% match" unless it reflects the GC-MS overlap of the actual compositions.
Reviews and guides are written and wear-tested by Julia Moretti, our Lead Fragrance Editor, with Fragrenza's perfumery team in Boyds, Maryland. Questions about a specific comparison? Write to contact@fragrenza.com.